The Victorian Earth Resources Regulator has updated a range of guidelines about rehabilitation plans and costs, while also introducing new quarry planning controls.
From 1 July, 2021, a revised Preparation of Rehabilitation Plans guideline has come into effect for extractive industry work in Victoria.
The new guidelines can be accessed on the Regulator’s website.
Further to these changes, the Regulator has also updated its Rehabilitation Bond Calculator to enhance site rehabilitation processes and provide a more accurate assessment of the costs involved.
“Supporting this, new guidelines and materials have been developed to assist rehabilitation to take place progressively, rather than at the end of a site’s productive life, and to help operators to minimise their liabilities,” the Regulator stated.
In Victoria’s growth corridors of Wyndham City (west of Melbourne) and South Gippsland Shire (south-east of Melbourne), new strategic extractive resource area (SERA) planning controls have been implemented.
These controls should improve the well-being of future quarries and the communities who might otherwise develop nearby.
By identifying where quarries may come to exist in Victoria’s future, based on hot spots of key resources, residential development can be sure to avoid such areas. The SERAs are chosen on the basis of where future development may be key, based on the state’s Helping Victoria Grow: Extractive Resource Strategy.
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