Neville throws support behind agricultural show as no-peg rule highlighted

MEMBER for Bellarine Lisa Neville has thrown her support behind the Bellarine Agricultural Show following council regulations that could put the event’s future in jeopardy.
Celebrating its 30th anniversary next year, show president Janet Mc Donald said organisers were struggling with the City of Greater Geelong’s (COGG) “no tent peg” rule.
“While we fully understand the need to protect valuable underground infrastructure it seems puzzling that in a council fortunate enough to have many diverse community spaces used for many wonderfully different events, that a blanket rule exists, rather than a flexible policy that can be assessed on a case by case basis,” Ms Mc Donald said.
“There still exists accurate local knowledge of all underground infrastructure at the Portarlington Recreation Reserve, and with this expertise, we have been using pegs for 17 years in these exact spots without incident.
“In fact, considering the proximity to the bay and the changing coastal weather it could be argued that no incident has occurred due to pegs being used to stabilise all tents.
Ms McDonald said that under the regulations, 12-inch pegs needed replacing with a weight of 80kg on each corner of the tents.
“Providing this weight will be financially onerous considering we need numerous tents, this will also add to the volunteer burden especially in the area of manual handling as men can only safely lift 25kgs, according to WHS rules.”
Ms Mc Donald said the simplest and fairest way to solve the no tent pegging rule was for the council to geoscan the whole area and show, not only the Bellarine Agricultural Society, but all those who may use it, where they can and cannot use pegs for securing tents and marquees.
Ms Neville said any proposed regulatory changes for the agricultural show would severely impact the stall holders and have a significant impact on the planning for the 2020 show.
“It will also impact parking for the horse show which brings in significant revenue for the Bellarine Agricultural Show,” Ms Neville said in a letter to COGG seen by this paper.
“The Bellarine Agricultural horse show is a qualifying event for the Melbourne show.”
“I therefore seek council’s commitment to undertake the required geoscan of the site as soon as is possible to decipher if there is any significant underground infrastructure at the show site.”
Director of Economy, Investment and Attraction at COGG Brett Luxford said there were no new regulations regarding the pegging or weighting of infrastructure on city land.
“The requirement to weight marquees has been a specified permit condition for the Bellarine Agricultural Show at Portarlington Recreation Reserve for the past three years,” Mr Luxford said.
“We expect event holders to adhere to all conditions on their permits when holding an event.
“This condition was highlighted to event organisers when they were issued their latest permit.”