Groups mount cable car case
DUELLING petitions from the opposing camps on a kunanyi/Mt Wellington cable car plan have been lodged with Legislative Council, as lobbying intensifies over the Liberals’ enabling legislation.
In the coming months the State Government plans to table legislation to acquire land on the mountain to make way for a cable car.
If passed as law, it will allow proponent Adrian Bold’s Mount Wellington Cableway Company to access Mt Wellington Park to do assessments and prepare a development application, without the consent of the Hobart City Council.
From there, the project will be assessed under the normal planning process.
Supporters and opponents of a cable car are vowing to lobby the Upper House on the legislation and have lodged competing petitions.
As of yesterday, a petition in favour of the Government’s plan had 1676 signatures and a petition urging against it had 1103 signatures.
Principal petitioner of the pro-cable car side Nathan Chilcott said he had been a long-time supporter of a cable car for the mountain.
“I wanted to show my support for the latest proposal, and the facilitation Bill that’s being looked at the moment is a criti- cal part of getting the proposal under way ... if the facilitation Bill doesn’t go through nothing can be done basically,” Mr Chilcott said.
“I think it’s a great idea for tourism, for locals and it’s just a noisy minority that are against it.”
Residents Opposed to the Cable Car principal petitioner Ted Cutlan said there was huge division in the community over the cable car itself and the land acquisition legislation.
Mr Cutlan said the Bill was simply a political process so the Liberals could look like they were supporting a major project that was not made as a project of state significance by the co-ordinator-general.
“The removal of this imaginary roadblock is the consolation prize, because they couldn’t go through the POSS process so they now have to be seen to be doing something positive,” he said.
Sunday Tasmanian analysis of the almost 850 submissions on the draft Bill found more than two-thirds of submissions were against a cable car and/or the Government’s legislation.