Being eight years ago I don't recall the comment, but it sounds like something I'd say and I'm happy to be on record with it. As a conservationist I'm constantly looking for ways for nature and people to co-exist, and as Tammy rightly points out riding can work where it is planned, restricted to sensible levels and regulations are followed.

However, there's no way I or anyone who has spent any time in the area would suggest training racehorses up and down a beach is sensible, planned, sustainable, fair (to other beach users), safe or honestly acceptable in a developed nation.

Belfast Coastal Reserve is not just a beach. It's literally a nursery for birds quite apart from being a spectacularly wild bit of coast and an untapped resource for tourism. As Tammy says I spent many years finding birds in the area, and since then some amazing volunteers have picked up the baton and done some truly amazing work there. While the significance of places is sometimes overstated by enthusiastic locals, in this case the numbers are dead clear. Every year dozens of pied oystercatchers, red-capped plovers and hooded plovers pair lay their eggs and raise chicks on the Belfast Reserve beaches. It’s not just one species – this area is crucial for three breeding shorebirds and other coastal bird such as terns, cormorants and migratory shorebirds.

So significant is the area, one could easily make the case to very significantly restrict all access there. Many National Parks don’t have anywhere near the significance of this amazing area. But nobody is saying that. Co-existence between people and wildlife is possible, and more than that, it's desirable. These places belong to everyone and everyone should be able to enjoy them and the diverse and rich wildlife and scenery there. Thanks to some truly amazing BirdLife Australia volunteers who go out and find, sign and fence nests so people know where they are, we all can enjoy the coast there, knowing we are not doing any harm to wildlife.

But this can’t protect birds from commercial racehorse training. Nothing can. Commercial racehorse training is a highly destructive activity and totally inappropriate for any coast, let alone one of this significance. As Tammy says, racehorses being intensively trained ploughs beaches, destroying the entire food chain and rendering them as basically extinct ecosystems and making them downright ugly.

In the end it's a simple question. Does anyone really think that training 500kg racehorses up and down in an area where hundreds of flightless hatchlings running around each year trying to find food and survive on the shoreline is an acceptable use of public land?

I'm pretty sure I wasn't endorsing that in 2008.

Glenn Ehmke, Senior analyst, BirdLife Australia

Tammy Good (Trainers ‘treated unfairly’) is correct in saying that the debate about horses training on beaches must be based on facts. For years, BirdLife Australia has been calling for action to control a range of threats to hooded plover and other birds within Belfast Coastal Reserve. Our 2014 report to Parks Victoria on hooded plover management found that sites in the reserve are the most heavily threatened in Victoria and that horse access within the reserve is widespread and frequent. It states that levels of horse access are higher than any other park managed by Parks Victoria and that “the risks to hooded plovers become cumulative and unmanageable once too many horses access the coast. With no regulations or permit system in place, it becomes difficult to mitigate this threat.”. 

The report pre-dates the recent escalation in commercial racehorse training on beaches between Warrnambool and Port Fairy. Our 2014 report calls for a horse management strategy for the reserve and provides key principles for such a strategy – for horse numbers to be restricted and for riders to adhere to simple but strict guidelines. For example, small numbers of horses walking on hard sand at low tide. Hooded plovers and other beach-nesting species can co-exist with managed, low-impact horse riding. The current high impact practices of commercial racehorse training – where horses are worked in the soft sand, at pace, churning the beach habitat until it resembles a ploughed paddock – would never meet these guidelines. 

When Tammy notes that the numbers of adult birds using beaches in the reserve has not changed, she is missing a key point. What’s critical is whether they can safely raise chicks at this vital breeding ground to add to the dwindling Victorian (and national) population. They can only do this if a range of threats, including horse riding, are managed within the reserve.

Jenny Lau, Carlton

THE State Government needs to scrap its withdrawn “puppy farm bill” and consult dog breeders to avoid creating new regulations with unnecessary red tape. 

The Minister for Agriculture Jaala Pulford has made an absolute mess of the legislation, which has caused incredible division, hurt and worry among legitimate and small-time hobby breeders. 

The Economic and Infrastructure Standing Committee will this week call for the Andrews Government to abandon its plan to limit breeders to owning a maximum of 10 female dogs. 

This legislation has inflamed huge community concern, with more than 100 dog owners, breeders, farmers and local councils ringing and emailing my office to say that the proposed legislation will increase red tape. It would also result in costly compliance and significant costs to breeders, show societies and local government, as well as the local councils who will have to administer and police the permit compliance.

The puppy farm legislation is simply a dog’s breakfast. I can’t remember a bill being second read in the Legislative Assembly and then withdrawn, not to see the light of day again. 

To quote new councillor Bev McArthur of the Corangamite Shire, the government is ‘using a sledgehammer to squash a pea’ to try and improve animal welfare standards in industrial-scale puppy farming. 

My advice to the minister is to scrap the legislation and start engaging with stakeholders to find a way to avoid overlaying costly bureaucratic compliance against puppy breeders who are doing the right thing and adhering to the Domestic Animals Act 1994 codes and standards. 

The legislation needs to use current animal welfare codes and standards and laws to have large-scale puppy factories and Dogs Victoria members legally compliant. 

Simon Ramsay MP, shadow parliamentary secretary for rural and regional transport

I noted with interest the letters and comments in last Saturday’s Standard regarding the current Warrnambool-Melbourne trains.

Having returned from a trip to the UK a few months ago, readers may be interested in the following:

During my visit I travelled extensively on seven mainline trains run by South West Trains, First Transpennine Express, Northern, Southern, and Virgin Trains.

On each journey I travelled in second class comfortable modern carriages, leaving and arriving on time. While UK trains are more expensive than here, by booking ahead I was able to make savings of up to 80%, and this without either having a Railcard or having to prove that I am of pension age. On Virgin trains, I travelled the same distance as from Warrnambool to Melbourne (267 kilometres) in one hour 24 minutes (191km/h) compared with our local train taking 3 hours 30 minutes (and often longer) at an average of 76kms/h.

The editorial last Saturday mentioned us coming into the 21st century with our train service. I would be more than happy if we even came into the 20th century with it! To put things into perspective, as long ago as fifty years ago, in the mid-1960s, I regularly travelled in modern carriages between London and Manchester, a distance of 320 kilometres, in 2 hours 30 minutes, at an average speed of 128 km/h, including several stops.

All the UK routes that I took recently had scheduled trains at very frequent intervals (usually every 30 minutes) compared with our service to and from Warrnambool having intervals of up to six hours between trains.

When is a Victorian Government (Labor or Liberal) going to accept that our mainline trains (rolling stock) and train services (frequency and journey time) are an absolute disgrace, and address the problem?     

David Pearson, Warrnambool

I write in reply to David MacPhail (The Standard, December 3), calling for consultation on a proposal to investigate the use of groundwater to supplement drinking water supplies from the Gellibrand River over the summer months.

Wannon Water is working in partnership with Southern Rural Water, the Corangamite Catchment Management Authority and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning on a trial due to start in 2017.

We currently pump water from the Gellibrand River to supply urban water to Warrnambool and other towns, including Camperdown, Terang, Koroit, Mortlake and Allansford. 

It is important to note that Warrnambool’s drinking water is already supplied from a combination of sources comprising the Arkins Creek, Gellibrand River, North Warrnambool roof water harvesting area and from existing bores at Carlisle River and in Warrnambool’s Albert Park. Regardless of its source, all of this water is treated by the same facilities at the Warrnambool Treatment Plant to a high standard.

We are committed to providing safe, reliable drinking water to our customers in south-west Victoria under the requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act 2003 and associated regulations.

Wannon Water has a comprehensive water quality monitoring program extending across its 23,500-square- kilometre region. In 2015/16, we tested more than 45,000 water samples, achieving 100 per cent compliance against the standards of the Safe Drinking Water Regulations 2015.

Samples are collected at various stages in the system, from the raw water source through to a reticulation point equivalent to a customer’s tap. All samples are analysed by an independent laboratory certified by the National Association of Testing Authorities.

The high standard of our drinking water is reflected in customers’ continued satisfaction, with surveys showing 95 per cent of domestic customers were either satisfied or very satisfied with the performance of Wannon Water.

A report prepared in May recommended reducing the dependence on water extractions from the Gellibrand over the low-flow period by investigating the use of high quality groundwater, sourced from either new or existing bores near the current river extraction sites, to complement other water supplies.

The trial will determine if the use of groundwater leads to improved flows and environmental benefits in the river. Landholders and community leaders are currently being consulted about the project through a stakeholder group and during community information sessions.

People can visit www.wannonwater.com.au to learn more about the Gellibrand Summer Flows Improvement Program. 

Andrew Jeffers, managing director of Wannon Water