Residents fume over cemetery work

Fernside Drive near Bunurong Memorial Park. 157021 Picture: GARY SISSONS

By CASEY NEILL

Bunurong Memorial Park is fast becoming a nightmare to local property owners, one resident has said.
Alan Hood lives on Fernside Drive, just metres from the cemetery, and submitted a question to the Monday 11 July Greater Dandenong Council meeting.
“Every member of our family has had a near miss from a head-on collision with the hundreds of trucks using Fernside Drive,” he said.
“Fernside Drive has almost reached a permanently unsafe situation with indentation from the trucks causing aquaplaning when it rains.”
Mr Hood said two kilometres of fill ranging from four to six metres in height had “cut off the exit path from this city of the massive floods we see every few decades”.
“Taylors Drain has been strangled to about 5 per cent of its task and points directly at an EastLink exit drain,” he said.
He asked whether the council issued a planning permit for the facility, which is on land subject to an Environmental Significance Overlay 3 (ESO3).
Greater Dandenong city planning, design and amenity director Jody Bosman said Mr Hood’s questions would require a review of a number of historical files as well files on existing planning permits.
“Once this is completed I will provide Mr Hood with a detailed written response,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Bunurong manager Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (SMCT) told the Journal that all works associated with the memorial park were undertaken in consultation with Melbourne Water.
“And all works have been compliant to the relevant standards and regulations,” she said.
“Our investigations have indicated that there have been no flooding impacts associated with fill on the site.
“We do not believe there have been any incidents involving the trucks, however people with safety concerns should contact the relevant road traffic authority.”