Road sitrep, feedback and strategy 2010/04/07 11:49

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Mal Morrow

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Apr 7, 2010, 6:11:49 AM4/7/10

to Rondeberg Road

Hi road users -

Sitrep.

Welp: the situation on the road is a bit more stable for now. The quarry patched the road, with a little prompting from me and from the Council. And they appear to have stopped using the quarry in any serious way for the time being. Word has it that they won't resume until next year, but I don't know whether this is true.

The road patches in the stretch between Dageraad and Anaheim are of poor quality and the sandy ditches that were slightly covered up are clearly coming apart again. The only reason they're holding as well as they are is because the road is only carrying our domestic traffic now. But in winter, well we will have some problems I'm pretty sure.

Feedback.

I've been in touch with Sharon Damon, William Kingwell and, indirectly, Katy Spalding in the past couple of days. The Council is continuing with the proposed prosecution of the quarry operator for violation of the land use departure conditions. But the outcome of the court case will be, at most, a fine.

Katy has been in contact with Cape Nature Conservation, as you saw in email referred yesterday. CNC's opinion is very useful because it doesn't bear on the land use departure, but on the DME's mining permit and Environmental Management Plan. I've had a hell of a job getting anyone at the DME to take an interest in this case. But if I can get hold of helpful contacts at the CNC, then we may get some action there. Specifically, it doesn't sound like CNC is at all happy with the way the EMP is being ignored. And if they can convince the DME to be similarly unhappy then the mining permit may come under question or review.

I've also spoken to Councillor Barbara Rass about the situation. She promised to visit the road today to take a look herself. As the road is patched up and the quarry is no longer operating I told her she won't see much. But as she may be closely involved in the Monitoring Committee (see below), it's important that she get involved and take possession of some element of the situation.

Strategy.

I'm going to carry on pursuing the quarry even if they're not presently using the road. I'm going to follow up with the Council about the Monitoring Committee, establishment of which is condition c) of the land use departure. The Monitoring Committee might be chaired by the Councillor - I will try to make sure of that, as she is friendly, or can be persuaded to be so. The Committee would involve all stakeholders (aghh, jargon), and I've made it clear to everybody that this means us in the community too. But it would be as well to formalise our structure so that we have a definite delegation to send to a Monitoring Committee meeting, which will report back to the community, etc. Bureaucracies tend to be impressed with 'structures'.

So to that end, I'm proposing that we form a committee of our own. I'll write a separate email about that in due course, because we need to decide on its shape and purpose.

One of my objectives is now to try and light a rocket under the DME, and get them to take a look at the mining permit and the EMP. I'll work on CNC, if I can reach them.

I will try to get hold of a copy of the actual mining permit (I only have the EMP at the moment).

My first purpose is to get the quarry shut down. This is my primary goal; keeping the road in shape is merely an important secondary goal. And until we form a local action committee of some sort, and decide on some other policy, shutting down the quarry will continue to be my goal. Therefore if you think my priorities are wrong, well you'd better help me set up the committee so that you can tell me what else to do!

In my other goals: I'm aiming to set up some way of keeping the road in good condition. I know how important this is to practical life in our area. But at this time I don't have any preference on how to do that - we could raise funds ourselves, like we do now, we could set up a Special Rating Area under the Council, we could get the Council to assume control of the road - lots of alternatives, but I've no particular preference.

I also hope to use this quarry/road problem to spur local self-organisation. I think we've lived in the area together long enough to begin to understand what we have got ourselves into. I myself have a pretty good vision of the sort of neighbourhood I'd like to share with you, and I'd like your opinions to help me frame and publish some community values and objectives. This means organising ourselves for more purposes than just opposing the quarry and looking after the road. Which is obviously another reason I'd like to start our local organising committee; see above and next email.