Victoria’s Earth Resources Regulation has granted work authorities for 14 new quarries for the financial year 2021–22, making another 56.1 million tonnes of reserves available.
Earth Resources Regulation released its Quarterly Performance Report: 2021–22 Quarter 3 for the period 1 January to 31 March 2022, reporting that work authorities have been granted for five new quarries.
This brings the total to 14 new quarries for this financial year as of 31 March 2022, which contrasts with the 2020–21 financial year where only three work authorities were granted.
On top of this, Earth Resources Regulation has statutory endorsement of work plans and variations for 12 quarries (since 1 July 2020) that have yet to seek final approval. The reserves for this total more than 251 million tonnes.
The report also highlighted that 82 per cent of extractive work plan stages were assessed within the statutory time frames, whilst 69 per cent of mineral work plan stages were assessed within the statutory time frames.
Likewise, 100 per cent of reportable incidents were responded to this quarter and 78 operational compliance activities were undertaken – 47 of which were within extractives, 29 in mining and two in petroleum.