Archive:   Lawson Road Resort

Last Updated  25/9/06

See also Macedon Lodge archive

Yipes!  Not Another "Macedon" Resort Application?

(15/8/06 - P)  Here we go again.  More cabins and another restaurant proposed in a drinking water catchment, this time in Lawson Road, Macedon on the 'banks' of Rosslynne Reservoir - people are supposed to drink the water that comes off this unsewered property

Reminiscent of the 'residential hotel' (72 cabins and "six-stars") approved recently at Macedon Lodge (in a drinking water catchment), there's yet another 'residential hotel' (includes 25 serviced cabins) and restaurant application with Council and now out for community comment.  This one's on the south side of Lawson Road (off Ross Watt Road), next to Rosslynne Reservoir.   The application number is P205-0659; the applicant is Mr. Greg Jinks c/- The Planning Group.

MRRA Says:

Wonder no more why Victoria is running out of water.  Not when governments won't protect the land that produces our drinking water.

Despite an obvious drought, large water-guzzling and effluent-generating developments keep going into our water catchments.  Yet various authorities across Victoria have been calling for years (since the Kennett government) for a planning control to regulate development in drinking water catchments.  No government has taken up that call. 

There are no specific controls for water catchments in planning schemes that stop use and development that has the potential to bulldoze soil around and remove vegetation (all that disturbed dirt ends up in our drinking water and eventually 'silts' up the reservoirs, reducing their holding capacity), to put in on-site effluent disposal systems (no system is 100% effective) and to take up water (in dams and tanks or by diversions from waterways) that would otherwise flow into the public water supply held in the reservoirs. 

You may remember a recent photo in a local newspaper of Federal MP Fran Bailey in a golf cart being shown around this property, where a golf course was approved circa 2002.  MRRA hears various politicians have been given the tour by the developers, including some Macedon Ranges Shire councillors.  So there's some hard selling going on that this is a 'good idea' and should be approved.  And we all know how fond of 'good ideas', 'nice spots' and 'lovely people' some of our councillors are!

It will be interesting to see how Western Water/Southern Rural Water respond to this application - whether protecting the water resource by saying 'no' will prevail or, like Macedon Lodge, the development will be required to connect to sewerage even though it's miles outside the declared sewerage district, or whether, now that Rosslynne's almost empty and 'resting', it simply won't matter what happens in the catchment.