ONE of the state’s most dangerous bushfire-risk towns is facing another summer without an adequate fire shed, as the CFA continues “reviewing its options” in the wake of a shock Hepburn Shire Council decision.
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The council recently knocked back a planning application by the CFA to build a new shed in Hepburn Springs, which was named in the Bushfire Royal Commission as one of the worst locations in the state for fire danger.
Hepburn Shire mayor Bill McClenaghan said there was no question that Hepburn Springs needed a new shed, but the proposed Main Road site was not in the best interests of the community.
But Hepburn Rural Fire Brigade captain Barry Yanner said he was disgusted with the council’s lack of support for the new station, which would have replaced the current 40-year-old facility.
“This is one more summer that we go out to fires with outdated equipment from a tin shed that is not big enough to store all the safety gear we need,” he said.
“CFA have brought the land and funding for the building is approved.
“We were expecting to be in it for this season. That’s not going to happen now.”
He said the CFA would also give them a new state-of-the-art fire truck but it was too big for their current tin shed.
Hepburn Shire Council turned down the fire station at its June ordinary meeting, even though council officers said the application ticked every box and recommended its approval.
Cr McClenaghan said the council supported the CFA and local brigades.
But he said the CFA’s chosen site, opposite Hepburn Springs Primary School on Main Road, was not in the best interests of the the entire community.
He said the land was in a school zone and on an elevated block that sloped steeply into a large permaculture establishment.
“Council does not want to see a situation where there is a fire call at 3.30pm on a school day and there is a tragedy with a school student,” he said.
“Most of the fires attended by the CFA are in the main part of Hepburn Springs east of Doctors Gully or in Daylesford, so establishing a fire shed west of Doctors Gully is probably not a good idea.”
He said the CFA had two options – fight it out in Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal or talk to the council about other available sites.
Cr McClenaghan said there were better and more appropriate places.
“If they came to see us straight away things could happen pretty quickly,” he said.
A CFA spokesperson said the state fire authority was reviewing the different options and had not decided whether to appeal the decision in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal at this stage.
