Time to find out community views

Ballarat Courier
Saturday 14/7/2007 Page: 9

You can never meet everybody's concerns but we are hopeful of providing the best wind farm proposal if it goes ahead.

THE first of several meetings to gauge community attitudes towards a controversial wind farm proposal near Smeaton will be held next week. Members of a community reference group were selected earlier this month and will liaise with developer Wind Power about community attitudes towards the project. Wind Power is proposing to build 19 turbines in the Smeaton area.

The CRG will be an opportunity for an views to be heard about the proposal, Wind Power general manager Vaughan Hulme said. We have to provide feedback on the questions that came out of the information day and we hope to understand how the community concerns can be met and the most effective methods of communicating with members of the community," he said.

We can look to developing the proposal in ways that best address the community's concerns. You can never meet everybody's concerns but we are hopeful of providing the best wind farm proposal if it goes ahead." Of the several members selected for the panel about half are from the Spa Country Landscape Guardians Group who are strongly opposed to the development. SCLGG spokesman Will Elsworth is on the CRG, and said he was critical that the meetings have been closed to the public and media.