Great Ocean Road residents must be protected, shire says

SURF Coast Shire councillors have adjusted their submission to the Great Ocean Road Taskforce, stressing that any upgrades on or around the road must not come at the expense of towns along the route.

Councillors considered the proposed response to the Governance of the Great Ocean Road Region Issues Paper at their meeting last month.

At the meeting, Cr Clive Goldsworth and Cr Margot Smith successfully moved that an extra dot point be added to the shire’s submission: “Council acknowledges that the visitor economy is important to our region, but it should not be promoted at the expense of the amenity of those that live in the many towns along the Great Ocean Road”.

“Many townships have existing master plans that have been developed and agreed with the communities, and it is important that any new governance model acknowledge and respect these plans.

“It is important that townships that do not have formalised strategies guiding their development and growth be given the opportunity to put these in place.”

An existing dot point about the need to ensure adequate infrastructure (such as toilets, parking, roads and paths) in appropriate locations was also amended to read that the infrastructure should be “sensitive to the environment and amenity”.

Explaining the changes, Cr Smith said she agreed with many of the points raised in the issues paper.

“But I really do think it’s important that we acknowledge that people live along the Great Ocean Road – it’s people’s homes along this region – and we should recognise that and don’t push the visitor economy to the extent it impacts people that live there.

“The environmental impacts are also really critical. We rely on our pristine coastline and the adjoining bush, and it’s what a lot of people enjoy when they come down here, and any overarching planning authority needs to recognise that and make sure what’s done fits in with that.”

Cr Goldsworthy said he had attended five recent community meetings about the governance of the Great Ocean Road, including April’s Committee for Lorne lunch with taskforce co-chair Terry Mulder, and the taskforce had received close to 2,000 submissions.