Bleijie to rule on Boral’s billion-dollar blueprint
The future of a controversial Reedy Creek quarry plan will be known within the next two months.
The State Government has bitten the bullet and will now decide the fate of the Boral proposal within 30 days. More than 2900 people have written submissions about the project to the Government.
The Australian construction materials giant has previously tried to gain approval for a $2 billion quarry on the site, but that application was rejected by both the City of Gold Coast and the courts in 2018.
This time around, Boral has significantly reduced the size of the planned quarry, with just 26 per cent of the 216.7-hectare Reedy Creek site set aside for quarry development.
However, nearby residents want none of it and have banded together again to strongly oppose the project.
This week the State Government confirmed that it has “called in” the application and Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie will decide whether the project proceeds or is rejected “within 30 business days”.
The decision follows a request from Gold Coast-based Members of Parliament Ros Bates, Laura Gerber and Hermann Vorster, who raised concerns about the application and the effects it would have on the community.
Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning, Mr Bleijie said the call-in was about providing certainty for the community.
“Queenslanders deserve transparency and confidence in planning decisions, as well as certainty about the future of their area,” Mr Bleijie said.
“After a decade of uncertainty and angst regarding this proposal under Labor, we will calmly and methodically consider both the merits and impacts of this project and deliver certainty for everyone involved. “
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