Midfield Meat's plan to ease Warrnambool's housing crisis caught in red tape

But for the sake of the community, Mr McKenna said he was keen to find a solution.

With the city experiencing one of the country's biggest housing shortages, he said he was frustrated because Midfield was trying to help ease the crisis.

After two years of trying to get approval for a project to accommodate up to 400 workers in Merrivale, the proposal has all but stalled.

Plans for the first stage - to house 100 workers - include modern cabin-style accommodation as well as facilities such as kitchens, laundrettes, basketball courts and a gym.

Mr McKenna said he was frustrated by national media reports that said Warrnambool had the "direst labour shortages" in the country - alongside the Surrey Hills district in Sydney - with the lack of housing a major factor.

He said he was just keen to get a decision one way or the other. "If the answer is no, we accept it," he said.

Chief financial officer Alex Egan said Midfield had spent about $500,000 trying to get the housing project up.

"We're just throwing money at it and making no progress. Where does it stop?," he said.

In the meantime, the hold up has prompted Midfield to come up with plans to house another 93 workers at its Illowa farm.

And even though the plans were only submitted with Moyne Shire a few months ago, Midfield say it has already progressed further than the Warrnambool project.

Mr McKenna said if the Warrnambool project had been approved it wouldn'tbe looking at building something at Illowa.

Project manager Malerie Janes said after two years there was no outcome even after Midfield agreed to requests by authorities to set aside 100 out of the 400 proposed beds for the community to use.

"It's just being held up and stalled by red tape, by regulators, " Ms Janes said.

She said if it had been able to work together with regulators rather than go through "a lot of back and forth", the first stage to house 100 workers would have been built by now.

Ms Janes said the process for getting approval for the project was flawed.

She said it was advised to go to the state government minister for approval because it would be the fastest way to get action, but Mr McKenna said the planning minister had pushed it back to local government to deal with.

"This just goes nowhere," he said. "It's just a big black hole."

Mr McKenna said it had been easier to get approval for its protein plant - which was commissioned 15 months ago - than for his housing project.

The most recent plans have been with the city council since July.

A spokesman for Warrnambool council said its involvement was limited to providing feedback to the Department of Environment Land Water and Planning on the proposal, which the council had done at various times throughout the process.

"Progress of the application and the final decision rests with DELWP," the spokesman said.

Mr McKenna said at one point he was told to put his workers in caravans at Warrnambool's holiday parks, but refused because it would impact summer tourism.

As it was, he said he wasn't sure where holiday visitors were going to stay over Christmas with two of the city's motels gone, and the delay in getting its housing project up meant Midfield had to find other accommodation.

"We are managing to a point because we are leasing hotels and houses which is not ideal," Mr McKenna said.

He said the net effect of that was it left people out on the street.

Mr McKenna said the hospital was also struggling to fill a shortage of medical staff, but there was no where for people to live.

Ms Janes said there had been an overwhelmingly good response from the community to its Merrivale housing plan.

"Everybody is behind us and thinks it's a great initiative," she said.

Plant manager Alistair Sharp said the issue was talked about at a worker's forum in Warrnambool on Thursday, and they couldn't believe Midfield hadn't been approved for the worker accommodation project.

The Warrnambool factory is currently running at 60 per cent capacity but Midfield want to bring in another 400 workers to take it to 100 per cent.

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