The Yarra Valley Quarry’s decision to apply to expand its extraction area has sparked conflict among local residents in Launching Place.
Launching Place resident Andrea White, who lives just 30 metres away from the quarry said the effects of the expansion’s impact would be widespread.
“We moved here knowing there was a quarry there, yes we co-existed fine for 13 odd years but now suddenly it’s screw the residents we’re going to do whatever we want,” Ms White said.
The Yarra Valley Quarry is owned by Dandy Premix and its expansion would see its total extraction area increase from 23 hectares to 43 hectares wide and 285 metres deep, while increased activity has already impacted local roads, noise levels and dust.
Ms White, who spoke on behalf of the other residents living near the quarry, also expressed concern surrounding the quarry’s transparency when applying for the expansion.
For 15 years Ms White has lived in her house near the quarry, but she said in the last two years it’d become a problem.
“We’ve been here for 15 years and we lived here fine for 13 of those years,” Ms White said.
But when the industrial construction company Maas Group bought Dandy Premix for $85 million in December 2022, Ms White observed an uptick in quarry activity.
“The most obvious is the trucks and the noise. We are on McMahon’s Road, a very small rural road, it is bitumen because of the quarry, but it’s not a high-level bitumen so it’s already breaking up at the moment,” she said.
For the 13 years Ms White has lived in her peaceful Launching Place home, the noise of the occasional truck was never a problem.
Yet, the expansion would see a 42 tonne truck exit the quarry every seven minutes – these include six-axle dog trailers and three-axle trucks using loud engine braking which would exceed 85 decibels.
Ms White also claimed the Heavy Vehicle Regulator confirmed the small rural roads used by the trucks aren’t suitable for the amount of pressure it withstands from the trucks.
The trucks weren’t only disturbing the peace – Ms White said there’d been a “number of near misses” as 42 tonne trucks roared around corners.
“We had a lot of issues originally with driver behaviour. We had a number of near misses.”
“Because I drive a Hyundai i30 and when you’re coming across one of them on your side of the road it scares the bejesus out of you,” she said.
But Dandy Premix claimed the expansion was necessary due to the growing demand of quarry produced materials in Victoria, partly driven by the State Government investing over $10 billion annually into new infrastructure projects to meet the demands of a growing population.
Prior to Maas Group’s acquisition, the quarry was family owned and it supplied local projects for the Dandy Premix company, but now, it provides crushed rock, concrete and aggregates for the State Government’s Big Build.
It currently supplies level crossing removals projects at Carrum, Cheltenham, Mentone, Edithvale and Bonbeach, among others. If the expansion goes ahead, it would do so at a rate of 300,000 to 500,000 tonnes per year.
But Ms White said she understood the need for more resources, especially since she works close to the construction industry and has a good understanding of what’s happening.
“I’m absolutely not opposed to [quarries] and understand that we need raw materials.”
“I know it’s needed, but is this needed here, this one in particular? Because the Boral Quarry in Coldstrean, they’ve just done a huge expansion and they also mine hornfels,” Ms White said.
Other quarries in the Yarra Ranges such as the Boral Quarry in Coldstream have also expanded in recent years to accommodate for the growing demand of quarry resources.
But for Ms White and the other residents living next to the quarry, they’ve felt as if Dandy Premix (and Mass Group) have left them in the dark.
“We have told them that we’ll be opposing them because they really didn’t give us any choice,” Ms White said.
After the possibility of an expansion was discussed with residents in a consultation meeting in 2019, no further communication was made and Ms White assumed it wasn’t happening.
But it was only until 2024 when she found out the company had actually applied for the permit already after contacting the quarry on her own behalf.
Currently, the quarry’s application to expand is being assessed by the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
Dandy Premix and Maas Group were contacted for comment.
