Guy has no regrets on Spring Creek debate

OPPOSITION Leader Matthew Guy said he would not have done anything differently regarding his part in the debate and policy shifts about housing in Torquay’s Spring Creek valley.

As Planning Minister in the Napthine Liberal Government, Mr Guy set Torquay’s urban growth boundary 1km west of Duffields Road in 2014.

This was in agreement with an earlier Planning Panels Victoria (PPV) report but against the wishes of the Surf Coast Shire council’s Amendment C66, which wanted the boundary set at Duffields Road.

The decision followed Labor Planning Minister Justin Madden moving the town boundary 1km into the valley in 2009.

The question of Spring Creek will be resolved by the finalisation of the Torquay Distinctive Area and Landscape program being run by the Andrews Labor Government, and there are two possible outcomes: Option 1, which will will make land 1km west of Duffields Road a “low density ecologically sustainable development area”; or Option 2, which will rule out any sort of development.

Speaking last week, Mr Guy said Spring Creek could be “settled by the council and planning processes”.

“It’s not my issue – the council had an independent report, and they can have those discussions with the (Labor) government.

“I took a recommendation out of a planning panel report, and as far that as far as I’m concerned, it’s up to the government to solve.

“The council wanted a (planning) panel, they got it; they wanted the decision honoured, they got it; and as far as I’m concerned, it’s all changed since, but that’s not my government, that’s theirs, and they can manage that process.”

A four-three majority of the council voted to not accept PPV’s recommendation on Duffields Road in Amendment C66 in 2013, but Mr Guy said this did not matter.

“The council may have voted not to accept anything, but when a council chooses a panel, the panel is then binding.

“There was certainly some people in the council who didn’t want it, but they asked for an independent report – I didn’t intervene, they wanted it, and they got the answer out of it.”

He said building houses in Spring Creek had always been a divisive issue.

“I know it was then, I know it is now, which is also why Justin Madden didn’t do anything with it after he changed the boundary. I never changed the boundary, he did.”

Mr Guy said his government would not reverse decisions and remove Torquay’s status as a growth node.

Liberal Polwarth MP Richard Riordan said the Liberals would push to build a water pipeline to foster new developments at Winchelsea, Moriac, Colac and elsewhere.

“There’s got to be a general acceptance throughout south-west Victoria about people wanting to live here.

“COVID has been a complete gamechanger – whatever growth the Surf Coast, Colac Otway and the region saw is now supercharged.

“We can’t end up with enclaves worth millions and millions of dollars just for the people who got here first, so there is that tension, but the opportunity exists to open up new areas.”