Corangamite Shire Council has unanimously rejected a proposal for a massive 550 hectare solar farm at Bookaar near Camperdown.
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All six councillors present voted against the proposal for the $150 million project put forward by a joint venture involving the McArthur family of Bookaar including Corangamite Cr Bev McArthur and the UK-based Infinergy renewable energy company.
Cr McArthur was not at Tuesday night’s meeting.
A spokesman for Infinergy declined to say whether it would appeal the council’s decision, only saying it would take time to review it.
The project proposed the installation of 700,000 photovoltaic panels that would produce about 200 megawatts, enough to power 80,000 homes.
The vote to reject the proposal came after impassioned pleas to Tuesday’s night council meeting by about 10 Bookaar and Camperdown community members.
Many of the opponents said they were not against renewable energy but the project was proposed for good agricultural land and was not in the right place.
Corangamite mayor Jo Beard said the council did not know enough about solar farms and the state government needed to provide more guidelines to help the council consider such projects.
She said she expected the council would receive more applications for such projects.
Cr Beard also said the agricultural industry was very important to the shire and she could not see how the project would protect it for the future.
Council planning officers had recommended the project be approved but Cr Ruth Gstrein successfully moved an alternative motion to refuse the planning application.
Cr Gstrein said she did not believe the environmental impacts of the project could be adequately managed and its net result would not be of community benefit.
Cr Lesley Brown said Corangamite Shire was being surrounded by wind farms that were turning western Victoria into an industrial landscape.
She said the area needed to be kept for food production and not become an industrial landscape.
Cr Helen Durant said there were too many conditions attached to the council officers’ recommendation for which the council had still to receive information.
She said the suggestion the project would only have a 30-year life was debatable, saying it could be upgraded to extend its life.
Cr Simon Illingworth said the renewable energy market relied on government subsidies and could “be gone like that” if the subsidies were removed.
