Perth Voice Interactive

PLANS to move a concrete batching plant out of Vincent and into Stirling have not been warmly welcomed across the border.

Stirling council this week unanimously voted to write letters to all parties involved expressing “concern” over the proposal.

Vincent council and many Claisebrook locals are desperate to see the end of two concrete plants so their neighbourhood can be rejuvenated. The plants have been operating on rolling time-limited approvals, with the idea that they’d eventually move out and let Claisebrook grow.  

 The current plan is for the plant owned by Swiss-based Holcim to move to the company’s Welshpool site, and for the plant owned by Sydney-based Hanson to move to an industrial lot on Linwood Court in Osborne Park, over the border in Stirling (“Concrete disapproval,” Voice, November 25, 2023).

The Osborne Park lot is currently occupied by Vincent council’s works depot, which would move to a Mount Claremont site offered up by the state government.

A Stirling council report from December 5 says: “The state government initiated a working group to identify alternative locations for the relocation of these batching plants… of particular concern is that the City [of Stirling] was not consulted at any stage during this process.”

Stirling officers were briefed about the idea by Vincent staff on November 7. Vincent councillors endorsed the idea on November 21.

Stirling councillor Lisa Thornton has now put up a notice of motion calling for mayor Mark Irwin to write to planning and lands minister John Carey, environment minister Reece Whitby, Vincent mayor Alison Xamon and Perth lord mayor Basil Zempilas to express the City’s “concerns”.

A written explainer by Cr Thornton says, “we are at a crucial juncture concerning the future of the Stirling community”.

Cr Thornton acknowledged the intent behind the time-limited approval was so that the plants would eventually move out and allow Claisebrook to host a “high-density, mixed-use community and transit-oriented development in the area”, and notes that is “a vision not dissimilar” to what Stirling is planning for its nearby Herdsman-Glendalough precinct. 

The Linwood Court lot is zoned “industry”, and a concrete plant would likely be classified a “permitted” use. That means Stirling council would be in for a fight if it refused permission, and the decision at risk of being overturned on appeal. 

A report by Stirling staff says, “this type of use has the potential for off-site adverse impacts and to discourage the development of sensitive land uses outside of the Osborne Park industrial area, as has been the case in Claisebrook”.

Councillors unanimously approved Cr Thornton’s motion, and sent Mr Irwin off to pen the four letters of concern.  

The plants’ approvals are set to expire on June 30 2024, and both companies are asking the WA Planning Commission to grant an extension to keep operating while they prepare to move out. 

Mr Carey, who’s been assisting the relocation attempts in his capacity as minister for lands, told us last week it’d been a difficult search: “I’ll be frank: Say the words ‘concrete batching plants’, and it’s not like anyone throws their hand up and says ‘please pick me’.

“It’s not as easy as it seems to just pick a spot,” as the location needs to be accessible to trucks and have plausible routes to construction sites.

Many Claisebrook residents want the WAPC to play hardball and deny any extension past June 2024.

But Mr Carey told us last week: “We need concrete production. We need it for the large infrastructure program happening right now in WA.

“Just for them to stop because their approvals expire would cause a disruption in concrete supply for housing and for major infrastructure, and we would likely see increases in costs for homebuilding.”

by DAVID BELL