On the 20th July, I had the pleasure of meeting with a number of local residents. About 45 local Beerburrum residents attended a meeting, along with fellow Barro Group representatives at the local hall to discuss the Burrum Quarry Extension Project.
Click here to enlarge the plan on the right.
There’s several “take away” messages from this meeting and from the additional valuable feedback gained from the written submissions made during the project advertising period.
In essence while many want to see the local benefits of the quarry extension project, there remains concerns about the project from some relating to an increase in truck movements particularly along Beerburrum Road through the town.
There were over 80 written submissions made supporting the quarry extension, coming from a range of large and small civil construction companies operating both nationally and locally and from a large number of truck drivers and other individuals who want the quarry extension to proceed as they want to see competition, local job and cartage opportunities becoming available close to where they live.
To find a solution to the differing of opinion it is helpful that the Sunshine Coast Regional Council (SCRC) has previously requested that Barro Group engage a traffic survey and engineering company to conduct physical counts of the current vehicle quantities allowing an analysis to be undertaken to determine what the actual impact of the quarry trucks would be.
The results are best demonstrated in the pie charts below and it is very clear that the overall impact of the quarry trucks will be very low.
The charts show a range of outputs and hence truck movements from the quarry for a current situation in 2017 and for a future situation in 2027. In all cases the additional quarry truck volume is insignificant with a range of 0.8% to 3% of overall traffic volumes.
This small increase will easily be absorbed by the existing free capacity of the road.
The SCRC Local Plan clearly recognises the section of Beerburrum Road through the town as a “Major Road Corridor and Buffer” and that’s not surprising.
The SCRC Planning Scheme provisions reflects the reality that this section of Beerburrum Road is a main thoroughfare for both cars and heavy vehicles and the State Department of Transport and Main Roads has designated this section of Beerburrum Road as an approved 25m B-double trucking route.
Logging, quarry and farming produce trucks have used this route for multiple decades to get their timber to the mills and quarry and farming products to their markets.
There is clear intent in the SCRC planning scheme and the State’s designations that Beerburrum Road has an intended use for high traffic volumes and heavy vehicles and the data shown in the pie charts confirms that the heavy vehicles associated with the quarry extension will have minimal impact to the on the Beerburrum township.
The Local Plan clearly recognises this section of road as being a “Major Road Corridor and Buffer” and the Buffer has been included as an overlay on the properties adjacent to this section of road.
That’s sensible planning. It’s a move that acknowledges that as a result of the intended use of the road, the properties adjacent will be subject to high noise levels, it is information that available to everyone about the what is currently occurring and what is expected to occur in the future along this major road.
Please feel free to contact me at any time to discuss these issues further.
In the meantime, it is pleasing that the number of concerns raised regarding other matters related to the quarry extension were very limited.
I look forward to keeping you informed of developments as they occur.