Construction will begin on the Hawkesdale Wind Farm on January 9, nearly 15 years after the permit for the project was first issued.
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Spanish wind farm developer GPG will build 23 turbines across 50 parcels of land covering 2280 hectares less than two kilometres south-east of Hawkesdale.
The development became a lightning rod for local anger over the years, culminating with a group of Hawkesdale residents forming an association to take the state government and the wind farm developer to the Victorian Supreme Court.
The association argued a decision by the Victorian planning minister in November 2020 to extend the wind farm permit was invalid because the minister didn't get the local landholders to sign off on the extension. The case fell at every hurdle, struck down in the Supreme Court in August 2021 and again in the Victorian Supreme Court of Appeal in August 2022.
In both cases the court found the group of concerned residents didn't have the legal standing to pursue the issue due to a range of factors including its late formation - it was only legally incorporated immediately prior to filing legal action - and the fact many of its members were not directly affected by the wind farm.
The three-judge Court of Appeal also dismissed the group's claim that the minister needed the landholders of the proposed wind farm site to sign off on the extension. "None of the grounds of appeal have been made out," Justice Karin Emerson said in the judgment.
The legal action delayed the project by at least two years and cost many in the community large sums of money. After its most recent defeat in August, group spokesman John Bos said he wasn't sure whether there would be a further appeal to the High Court, but he recently confirmed the group had conceded defeat.
"The state government and GPG essentially made it very clear they would keep going until we had no more money to spend," he said. "It's not that we want to move on from (pursuing the case); we have to move on from it."
Mr Bos said the government "changed the rules to suit themselves", but the Court of Appeal raised no instances of rules being changed in the planning permit or legislation.
GPG ticked off the last of the permit conditions in December, allowing construction to begin.
Ben Silvester
Correspondent covering key issues across regional Victoria, based in Melbourne.
Correspondent covering key issues across regional Victoria, based in Melbourne.
