2020 Year in Review: July-September

JULY 2: THE Surf Coast Shire council passed its 2020-21 budget with a 2 per cent rate rise but is forecasting financial trouble in the years ahead. Cr Heather Wellington was the lone vote against the motion, saying it was the first time she had voted against a budget in 12 years of being a councillor.

JULY 9: APPLICATIONS opened for board positions for the new Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority. The authority will care for and protect public land along the length of the road, including areas of national park with Parks Victoria.

JULY 16: THE developer of The Quay and Quay 2 slammed the Surf Coast Shire council’s decision to close four roads connecting the two Torquay North estates on July 15 and keep them closed for the better part of a year, describing it as a “huge kneejerk reaction”.

JULY 23: THE proponent of Hotel Indigo in Torquay said he was not rushing to get the five-storey project built and would assess the best timing even if the contentious hotel got planning approval later this year. Barnes Capital was scheduled to argue at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) in November why the Surf Coast Shire council was wrong to refuse a planning permit for the
128-room hotel.

JULY 30: A FEASIBILITY study into Torquay’s long-awaited dedicated arts space recommended an extensive knockdown/rebuild that will house several facilities in one $28-million development. The Surf City precinct project would create a new arts facility, Australian National Surfing Museum, Visitor Information Centre and library.

AUGUST 6: THE Surf Coast returned to tighter coronavirus restrictions, with Stage 3 in effect across Victoria as of August 6. The full reintroduction of the Stage 3 lockdown was the latest in a series of tightened restrictions in recent days, including no visitors being allowed in the home and the mandatory wearing of face
coverings outside.

AUGUST 13: SOME Anglesea residents continued to take issue with the Eden Project’s claims of community support for its eco-tourism development in Anglesea and said an unreleased survey would prove Eden is not wanted in the town.

AUGUST 20: THE recently established Feed Me Surf Coast found new mouths to feed every week and got valuable support on the delivery front from the Torquay Lions Club. The not-for-profit community organisation collects spare food and excess produce from local businesses and shares it with members of the community who need it.

AUGUST 27: A CLUSTER of like-minded community groups along the Great Ocean Road banded together to form the Great Ocean Road Communities Network. The network said its creation was in response to the new Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority and would “facilitate communication and co-ordinated action among established community groups in towns along the Great Ocean Road and
its hinterland”.

SEPTEMBER 3: THE Falls Festival in Lorne was the latest major event in the Geelong region to fall over because of the coronavirus pandemic this year, with organisers abandoning plans to hold the festival over the New Year’s Eve period. Many other high-profile events had been cancelled, rescheduled or moved online.

SEPTEMBER 10: THE roadblocks installed by the Surf Coast Shire council in Torquay North stopped emergency vehicles from doing their job effectively, according to an eyewitness to an incident on September 10. Susie Cammarere saw an ambulance,
with lights and sirens activated, being halted by the roadblock on Marine Drive.

SEPTEMBER 17: THE Surf Coast made a big move along Victoria’s roadmap to coronavirus recovery. Premier Daniel Andrews announced that due to the declining number of cases, regional Victoria would take the Third Step on the roadmap as of 11.59pm, September 16 – only three days after it entered the Second Step, on September 14.

SEPTEMBER 24: September 19 marked the one-year anniversary of the Surf Coast being declared a Distinctive Area and Landscape, but the community was yet to see what kind of planning controls the state government was considering for the area. According to the original timeline, consultation of the draft SPP was supposed to begin early this year.