By Alesha Capone
Wyndham council has given the thumbs down to a proposal to build a new bottleshop in Werribee.
The council considered the proposal for the construction of a Dan Murphy’s bottleshop, use of land for the sale of packaged liquor and alteration of access to a road at 18-20 and 22 Princes Highway at a meeting last week, after receiving the application in December.
The planning permit included a request for 35 car parks, nine spaces less than the 44 spots required under planning guidelines.
Because the council failed to make a decision on the proposal within 60 days since the last amendment to the document, the applicant has asked the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) to decide on the proposal instead.
But the council last week unanimously voted to notify VCAT that it would have refused the planning permit, after receiving 18 objections to the proposal due to concerns about its design, noise, impact on amenity and a lack of “safe car parking”.
The matter is scheduled to be heard by VCAT on September 27 and 28.
A resident who spoke at the council meeting, Brian Gosney, said there were already 11 bottleshops in Werribee and expressed concern about the crime and anti-social behaviour the development could attract.
He said having the bottleshop open until 11pm every night would be “totally unacceptable”.
He said having trucks use Wattle Avenue to enter the bottleshop site would be unsafe.
Another resident said bottleshop customers might park in local streets, generating noise and extra traffic.
A third resident said that cars entering the bottleshop site from Princes Highway, heading west, would “disrupt traffic and present a serious risk of collisions”.
The man said trucks leaving the bottleshop might use local streets like Slattery Street and Sinns Avenue as a “rat run”.
“It needs to be remembered that these are residential streets,” he said.
“Families with children and old people live there.”
A spokesperson from the Endeavour Group (Dan Murphy’s parent company) said: “As with all our applications, we are committed to working constructively and collaboratively with the developer and other stakeholders to consider and engage on these queries and concerns.”
