Careys Road group take complaints to ombudsman

Careys Road residents have now escalated their complaints against SDRC to the Queensland Ombudsman, Anthony Reilly.

By Dominique Tassell

Careys Road residents have now escalated their complaints against Southern Downs Regional Council (SDRC) to the Queensland Ombudsman, Anthony Reilly.

The Emu Vale families have been battling SDRC over a dog breeding kennel near their homes.

The families represented themselves in the Planning and Environment Court earlier this year.

After going to mediation, the case was settled with the Cook family revising their plans for the kennels.

The new plans showed there would no longer be a dog faeces pit and that all animal waste would now be put into a bio-cycle septic system and would therefore not be composted onto grassed areas as originally planned.

The spokesperson for the families opposed to the kennel, Amelia Willmer, stated that the court is not allowed to look at how councils behave and this was a large part of their appeal.

“We were advised to instead take that part of our appeal to the Queensland Ombudsman,” she said. “We prepared a 15-page complaint, backed up with hard evidence, and submitted it last week.”

Amelia said the families involved all still feel “really angry and let down by the disrespectful way this council treated us and it should be held to account for being so unjust, negligent and unreasonable in the way they mishandled the planning application from start to finish”.

She said they took issue with the notification process, where one family was not notified due to an easement between the two properties.

“This was even though that family’s kitchen, main bedroom and family room looked smacked-bang at the site which was also ear-marked to have an open reservoir for dog faeces,” Amelia said.

“That is just one example of the many unfair issues we have raised with the Ombudsman.”

Amelia said their complaint has gone beyond this one case and reflects issues affecting every single citizen of this region.

“Our case shows how we are all disempowered, voiceless and vulnerable when we have an issue because none of us has our own local councillor to go to,” she said.

Due to there being no divisions in the region, Amelia said they were told they would have to email all nine councillors including the mayor when inquiring about the kennel.

“How ridiculous and inefficient is that?”

Amelia said all nine councillors replied that they were not allowed to be involved, and their email eventually got passed on to the CEO.

“The CEO emailed us to advise that not only were the councillors not allowed to be involved but that council officers would not contact us either until after submissions about the kennels closed,” she said. “We had no one who would answer any of our questions about making a submission.”

“None of us, ever in our lives, have ever had anything to do with a material change of use application and we had no idea how to interpret the town planning scheme which is a whopping big document full of contradictions and clauses and dense bureaucratic wording.”

Amelia believes they deserved to have someone guide us on what making a submission involved.

“We asked for help and got totally ignored,” she said.

Amelia said that their battle with SDRC lasted nine months and SDRC consistently ignored our emails and letters during that time.

“Even though we reported 179 incidents of nuisance barking over a five-month period, they didn’t even acknowledge one single report let alone action them,” she said. “How rude, arrogant and passive-aggressive is that?”

Amelia said she believes people in smaller communities within our region need their own councillor.

“If only we had had our own local councillor for the Yangan-Emu Vale area, someone who knew us and our area and who actually wanted to actively listen to our concerns, someone who understood the town planning scheme and how our issues sat within it so we could make a good submission.

Divisions have been a topic of conversation at the majority of recent Connecting with Council meetings.

SDRC confirmed earlier this year that they would be looking into divisions in the latter half of this year.

SDRC will need to lodge an application by March 2023 if divisions are to be considered for the region.

Reportedly, SDRC will travel out to the villages to survey and consult with locals on the topic of divisions, then talk in chambers and make a recommendation.

The topic of divisions in the region came up at both the Leyburn and Allora Connecting with Council meetings last year.

Leyburn locals stated that the community felt disconnected and unrepresented by SDRC.

They stated they wanted a town representative; someone who knows the area and can communicate with SDRC for them.

At the Allora meeting prior to that, a local stated they “have no representation on this end of the shire”.

An SDRC spokesperson stated that the “Council has undertaken a thorough investigation into the complaints and noise diaries previously submitted to Council and provided correspondence to one of the submitters on 16 May 2022”.

“The review included a collation of the submitted noise logs and gave consideration to the Environmental Protection Act 1994 with regards to regulated noise.

“The correspondence acknowledged that whilst there is some strong evidence of high impact noise incidents occurring, the court-approved design changes to the keeping enclosure for all the animals will have a significant impact on the noise reduction from the animal keeping use.

“The implemented agreed design changes as part of the court approval will have a significant impact on reducing and moderating noise for all recorded incidents including the incidents recorded during the 7 am to 7 pm period, Monday to Saturday and 8 am to 7 pm on Sundays.

“Council will continue to monitor the implementation of the court approval and determine if any further steps will be required.”