By Jamie Salter
The Cardinia Shire Council is calling for Melbourne Water to undertake further community consultation regarding the Beaconsfield Reservoir.
Melbourne Water is responsible for the infrastructure that supports the reservoir and has proposed to decommission the existing dam wall due to safety concerns.
Council has urged Melbourne Water to explain the rationale for choosing to decommission the dam wall.
“It is really important Melbourne Water engage with the community – there’s been minimal engagement and as a whole it has been inadequate,” councillor Brett Owen said at the Monday 21 February council meeting.
“Council supports the ongoing consultation by Melbourne Water with the community, to ensure community concern is understood.”
He said Melbourne Water has agreed to hold meetings in the coming months.
Councillor Jack Kowarzik said more needed to be done to address residents concerns.
“They are in agreement that they can do better, so I do look forward to that,” he said.
“They have the scientific expertise and the systems in place to understand what the safest option is and we have to back them on that.”
Save the Beaconsfield Reservoir group member Cheryl Billing Smith said she believed council was “sitting on the fence”.
“The councillors are not prepared to make a stand and I don’t understand why they don’t want to advocate for the community,” she said.
“The council is impotent because it doesn’t have an investment in it because it’s owned by the State Government.”
She said community members felt left out of the conversation.
“We want real meetings – not pretend meetings because that’s what we’re getting,” she said.
“We aren’t allowed to go into the reservoir and we’re not allowed know about it.”
Councillor Owen said access for residents who visit the reserve needed to be improved as part of the proposed works.
“It is a Victorian Government asset – they need to manage this asset and there’s strong community will that this needs to be more accessible to the public,” he said.
Council has advocated for the Victorian Government to assign the park manager role to a State Government agency and continues to call for DELWP to fund the development of a long-term strategic plan for the reserve.
A 229 page report was submitted for the meeting to provide a status update of the Beaconsfield Reservoir project and detail progress of council resolutions from May last year.
