TROY BELL MP
Member for Mount Gambier
Your Independent voice
in State Parliament
New developments approved
Friday May 31, 2024Published by The Border Watch by Charlotte Varcoe
A further 100 home developments have received the green tick by SA Water despite recent delays.
Earlier this month it was reported the future of housing developments across Mount Gambier/Berrin came to a standstill due to SA Water requesting a network analysis.
Since then, local members, developers and council representatives met with Minister for Housing and Urban Development and SA Water. SA Water confirmed it had approved more than 100 new developments across Mount Gambier/Berrin, increasing the number from 37 in the last 12 months to 135. An SA Water spokesperson said in order to help progress active housing developments in Mount Gambier/Berrin the company had recently completed an assessment of its wastewater network to "understand its capacity" to support the connection of proposed new houses.
"Importantly, the Finger Point Wastewater Treatment Plant continues to safely accept and treat sewage from businesses and homes in Mount Gambier and any suggestions the plant is 'at capacity' are incorrect," the spokesperson said.
"While the plant meets current customer demands, we're undertaking long-term planning for the plant to guide our future investments, including factoring in the city's future projected demand associated with new housing developments.
"This work is forming part of our 30-year masterplan for Mount Gambier's wastewater network, to ensure we can sustainably enable housing development while maintaining reliable services for our existing customers." Member for Mount Gambier Troy Bell said the longer term issue was the need for "serious infrastructure" upgrades and the wastewater treatment plant to allow for future growth throughout the next 30 years.
"That work is being undertaken and that is something which is going to be in the tens-ofmillions of dollars to address it," Mr Bell said.
"The positive part from the meeting though, apart from the fact Finger Point has capacity, is the commitment by the Minister to meet in the coming six weeks." Mr Bell said the solution to the current issue would benefit the region as a whole by allowing the houses to be built "sooner rather than later".
"This also means more work for trades and people in associated industries," he said.
"It also gives developers the confidence they are not putting their open money at risk and their applications could be assessed in a timely manner." Moving forward, he said the next step was infrastructure upgrades and claimed the "can had been kicked down the road" for too long.
"We have to make the tough decisions now and set our community up for the future and future generations and that is important work that I see our current local members of all levels of government pushing in the same direction to achieve," Mr Bell said.