Considerable Community Resistance
Towers a blight on ‘beautiful, unspoilt country’
New details of a contentious plan to build a network of powerlines across a 200-kilometre stretch of western Victoria have been released.
AusNet, which is building the Western Victoria Transmission Network Project to connect to renewable energy sources near Stawell with a power station at Sydenham, on Melbourne’s fringe, has released a map highlighting corridors where the powerlines may go.
The company’s executive project director Stephanie McGregor said the route between Ballarat and the windfarm only presented one option, but between Ballarat and Melbourne there were multiple routes under consideration.
Moorabool Shire mayor Tom Sullivan said the high voltage powerline project had the potential to negatively impact on the “very pretty, rolling, rural country” in the area between Melbourne and Ballarat.
“It’s beautiful, unspoilt country and to have these towers is certainly going to put a blight on the rural landscape,” he said.
“There’s consultation that just tells people what’s going to happen and there’s consultation that takes on board what people have to say.”
Image: Moorabool And Central Highlands Power Alliance
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The only way to make a difference is to get involved. It’s easy to sit back and wait for others to do something but when you are staring at 75-85m towers in a few years time, you will kicking yourself for not doing something when you had the chance. This is OUR only chance to stop these towers, so get involved now.
Welcome to the home of Darley Power Fight. A group of residents in Darley, Coimadai and Merrimu, united against high voltage transmission towers passing through our backyard. We came together through the realisation the transmission line will divide a narrow corridor between Darley and the Lerderderg State Park; altering landscape character, causing widespread damage to critical habitat for threatened species, increasing fire risk to the Park and thousands of residents, destroy our visual amenity, harm local agriculture and will impact businesses and property values. It will completely desecrate, in a few years, what nature has taken millions of years to create.
