A waste transfer station with slurry ponds near a Bangholme retirement village in the Green Wedge is set to be removed.
The operatior GND Civil reached agreement with Greater Dandenong Council to remove the station and to remediate the land at 576 Frankston Dandenong Road.
It also withdrew its appeal at Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) against the council’s refusal for a belated permit for the waste transfer station – which had already been operating for several years.
Greater Dandenong city futures executive director Sanjay Manivasagasivam said all use of the transfer station would cease, all materials removed from the land and the land must be returned to its condition before the transfer station commenced.
“Council anticipates that this will occur by the start of November 2025.”
Manivasagasivam said the agreement didn’t apply to an allegedly contaminated soil mound and earthworks run on a different part of the site.
“Council and the Environmental Protection Authority are continuing the enforcement process with the other operators and landowners for the remainder of the site, including those areas with the unlawful fill and soil.”
EPA Victoria ordered the soil mound operator Eastern Seaboard Industries to cease accepting excavated material and to remove any confirmed contaminated soil from the site by 28 February this year.
However, the operator – who has deserted the site – has since applied to VCAT for a review of the soil removal order.
GND Civil had been operating the soil transfer station for several years, with the council refusing two permit applications in 2022 and this year.
According to GND’s submission, the 3.4-hectare waste-water and soil transfer station would take in about 20,000 litres of slurry a month.
It would include a soil stockpile, settling ponds, slurry pits and buried containers behind the existing flower-growing business.
Water from the ponds would be used to irrigate flowers and grass for livestock.
Soil would be removed from the slurry pits to dry on a stockpile and then moved off site once a month.
Councillor Rhonda Garad said she wondered how the operator was allowed to apply for retrospective permits for an authorised station.
“This takes us back to square one but you have to ask why were they allowed to install the station in the first place?
“Why wasn’t a soil assessment done of the site there and then? And what is there that is so bad that it is buried in containers?”
In its notice of decision on 6 September, the council refused the permit on 19 grounds including the transfer station failing to meet the objectives of the Green Wedge, and floodplain and air quality management requirements.
The station would result in “significant amenity impacts” as well as “significant social effect” given the objections of a Willow Lodge residents group, the council found.
The proposal was also found to lack adequate car parking, and was contrary to other planning objectives and strategies, such as protection of agricultural land, sustainable industry, waste and resource recovery and industrial.
