Commercial scoria quarry for Tandarook farm approved by Corangamite Shire

On Tuesday night councillors gave the green light for a scoria quarry to be developed at a dairy farm at Tandarook, citing a gravel shortage across the region.

The Jancourt Road quarry will be five hectares in size in the middle of a 241 hectare property.

No blasting is proposed and the applicant plans to excavate to a maximum depth of five metres.

Concerns raised by two objectors related to visual impact, the size of proposed quarry, traffic impacts, quality of information provided by the applicant and concern around previous quarry works carried out by the applicant without permission.

But the council said strict code of practice guidelines and pending approvals from Earth Resources Regulation mean concerns would be addressed.

Dairy farmer and Coast Ward Councillor Jamie Vogels said gravel was vital to farming operations.

"Farmers don't operate without gravel, you can't fix the road without gravel and you can't build wind towers without gravel," he said.

"We should be actively encouraging more quarrying of gravel within our shire.

"The problem is not laying the gravel on the ground but the hoops and hurdles and expenses imposed by the state government.

"We should be having the discussion next year about how we can activate more gravel pits in the Corangamite Shire."

The red volcanic gravel extracted at the Rendell Quarry site would be used on the farm and for commercial sale, the application reads.

Scoria is a resource in high demand and low supply in Corangamite Shire, and is highly sought by farmers.

The quarry will be managed under Rendell Farming Trust and will extract around 5000 to 10,000 metres of material per year.

Councillors approved on a number of items on Tuesday night, including expanding Camperdown's industrial precinct, Cobden's structure plan, a new boat ramp at Lake Bullen Merri and footpaths for Lismore, Terang and Camperdown.

Watch the meeting here.