Gunlake Quarry considers Land and Environment Court appeal

Gunlake Quarry managing director Ed O’Neil said his company had lodged an appeal against last month’s Planning Assessment Commission’s (PAC) refusal of its bid to almost triple production.

The Brayton Road, Marulan operation wanted to boost output from 750,000 to two million tonnes annually of hard-rock aggregate. But the Commission baulked at the maximum 440 trucks daily required to transport the material, the road upgrades proposed and the application’s ‘insufficient’ examination of rail.

The Commission also decided the plan would have “unacceptable social impacts, including negative road safety outcomes and was not in the public interest.”

Mr O’Neil said he’d lodged the NSW Land and Environment Court appeal to meet the statutory timeframe for doing so but his company was also considering a modified application. The project is deemed state significant.

“If we don’t know where we’re going in the next few months, 15 of our 35 workers will lose their jobs...which is tragic. We can’t afford to hold on to them,” he told The Post.

Mr O’Neil said he engaged the 15 employees last year and “ramped up production to meet demand” in anticipation of the expansion’s approval. This was based on a NSW Department of Planning and Environment recommendation to the PAC, council and Roads and Maritime Service comments. Mr O’Neil said it was an “educated” expectation but it seemed “the only one who didn’t want the development was the PAC.”

The company is keeping its options open on an appeal. It is also examining the PAC’s judgment with a view to incorporating improvements into a modified application.

But Mr O’Neil ruled out rail, saying it was expensive, would not work and required a State Government or Sydney-based strategic response for the area to be feasible.

He pointed out that the PAC did not specifically state that rail was the only option, but had highlighted there was no government policy in place to deal with the growing demands of product transport from the region.

“(It’s our contention) the PAC has confused our application with that lack of policy,” he said.

Mr O’Neil argued the Commission was open to considering road transport, provided it met standards. 

But he is not budging on the controversial Brayton Road/Bypass Road route over to the Hume Highway.

“We’ve proposed a huge amount of safety improvements in our EIS that will make it the safest road with that amount of traffic. The RMS also approved the reduced (80km/h) speed limit,” Mr O’Neil said.

Any appeal would try to convince the court of the merits of road transport.