Capel sand mine approved

A licence to extract sand and gravel from Gwindinup was granted at the Capel Shire Council meeting last week.

The unanimous decision will see an estimated 290,520 cubic metres of sand and 645,600 cubic metres of gravel extracted for the construction industry.

A number of conditions must be met for the five-year licence, including dust management, noise management and restricted hours of operation.

Blue gums on the site will be harvested and each stage of extraction must be rehabilitated as excavation moves forward.

Shire chief executive officer Paul Sheedy said the council was supportive of the extractive industry in the shire if conditions to protect ratepayers were met.

“We are happy to support extractive industries, but we clearly do have a number of conditions,” he said.

“Generally they are our standard conditions from a planning point of view to deal with traffic, noise, dust and hours of operations, so they are able to operate, but do not impact the community.

“We understand the economic benefit of having an extractive industry and supplying sand and gravel especially for the housing industry.

“But we need to make sure of things – for example if the roads are damaged the cost to repair them does not come back to our ratepayers – so contributions towards road works are required to ensure we are safeguarding our community.”

The decision comes after a contentious application for an extractive licence made by SJ Roadworks for a property on South Western Highway was rejected in July.

“The other lot SJ Roadworks applied for which the council refused had a whole range of contentious issues. It has now been appealed to the State Administration Tribunal,” Mr Sheedy said.

He said the council only granted a five-year licence as opposed to a longer period to ensure they could maintain minimise community impact.