Cedar Creek quarry requirements under notice

In October last year, Boral Construction Materials was given the green light for its Cedar Creek Quarry expansion but now it has lodged a Negotiated Decision Notice for several of the council’s requirements on the proposed development.

According to Mackay Regional Council applicants have 20 business days after they have been given a copy of a decision notice to appeal against the decision. If an applicant wishes to make representations to the assessment manager about certain matters in the decision notice, a new decision may be negotiated. 

Ken Furdek, manager for corporate communications at Mackay Regional Council, told Quarry that essentially what happened was that discussions between Boral and the council had reached some agreement. 

?So essentially there are still some conditions that Boral do not agree with ? council is not budging, so it may end up in the Planning Court,? he said. ?Council has given approval for the quarry to happen, if Boral meet all the conditions ? the ball is now in Boral’s court.?

At a recent council meeting, Councillor Laurence Bonaventura said he didn’t think the proposed four metre buffering zones were good enough and the figure should be revised to eight metres.

“The recommendation that came before council today was a series of minor changes to the Boral quarry lease. I was quite in favour of all of those apart from the final one, which was to do with buffering,” Bonaventura said after the meeting. “In my personal view it would have been [better] to see a minimum of an eight metre buffer to allow a little bit more buffering between the existing properties and the quarry.”

However, during the meeting, Mayor Deirdre Comerford made the point that Boral had proved to council’s experienced planning staff that they were able to have an efficient buffering zone with the four metre requirement.

“We have experts who work on these issues … we need to trust our people,” said Comerford.

Quarry approached Boral for further comment about its application. “We have not yet received a formal response from Council and therefore prefer not to comment at this stage,” a Boral spokesperson advised.