Policy position to be developed by City of Albany in response to growing number of mining applications

The City of Albany will start a process to develop a formal policy position on mining tenement applications relating to land it has care and control of. The decision to do so was reached on Tuesday night and was prompted by a motion from Cr Stephen Grimmer amid growing concern over an increasing number of mining applications being made within the City of Albany municipality. Cr Grimmer’s original three-point motion had been split into two so the council could vote on two distinct proposals separately. The two points in the second part of the motion focused on developing a policy position and during a 45-minute discussion, they were further developed. Cr Chris Thomson tabled an amended motion which added in a request to the chief executive to examine publishing an online form on the City’s website to allow residents to be notified when there were mining applications in their area. He also accepted a further suggested amendment from Cr Greg Stocks to narrow the focus of Cr Grimmer’s original motion from a policy relating to applications within the City municipality to those relating “to land under care and control of the City”. During the discussion, councillors repeatedly referenced they had learnt a lot about the WA Mining Act during a presentation a week prior. Additionally, many councillors said they had learnt for the first time the City had already been responding to applications made in the area through a standard response. The response, as detailed in officer comments attached to Cr Grimmer’s motion, includes a list of areas the City does not support exploration within. Cr Grimmer said the standard response was “actually a really good starting point for our policy position”. “The feedback I received today was that this was an internal process that we use to send that letter out,” he said. “I think it’s much more important we are open and transparent as a local government and we do have a policy position on these types of applications.” Cr Paul Terry said he thought it was important to develop a policy because applications were creating a lot of angst. He said applications in City’s west were vastly different prospects to those in the east because where agricultural blocks tended to be larger with a focus on broad acre enterprises. “There is an element of the community that wants us to develop this policy and I think it will also be useful for exploration companies as well to know what our position is,” he said. Cr Robert Sutton congratulated everyone involved in shaping the motion during the meeting as was hesitant about voting for the original motion, but “fully supported” the amended motion. “We are the only State in Australia which has a veto on private land down to the first 30m,” he said. “If we concentrate on what we can control then we’re not wasting time and by doing show it shows the community we are listening.” A focus group of councillors will be convened by the chief executive to start the process of developing a policy position, which will then be further refined before being brought to council for formal adoption.