You will be aware that we haven’t posted anything since January 2020. During this time SSAG representatives have met with our local member Ms Wendy Tuckerman who was very sympathetic to our dilema and made this meeting with the Minister possible. We are very grateful for her making this happen, especially because it is not everyday you get an opportunity to speak directly to a Minister.

Given we are currently under COVID-19 conditions our meeting was conducted by a teleconference. Other participants were Ms Tuckerman and her advisor, a senior official from the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, and a senior member of Minister Stokes office. SSAG was represented by Jacqui Hassall, Mark and Dianne Burgess.

The SSAG presented the Minister with a detailed document outlining a range of issues, in particular, the favourable treatment Renew Estate Estate appears to be receiving from the DPIE.  We were able to point out that the 10 other recent large-scale solar projects in NSW had been given between 18 and 52 days to respond to any community objections, however as of 1 April, 2020, Renew Estate Estate has had 581 days to respond to our community’s objections and still nothing.   

Our document pointed out that Renew Estate has previously told the DPIE that they would provide their response by the end of January 2019 and then it was they would provide it by the end of November 2019.  It’s now April 2020 and they have still has not lodged their response nor have they provided any reason as to why it’s been delayed. 

The Minister appeared genuinely shocked that this process has been allowed to drag on for so long and apologised to the SSAG for the DPIE allowing it to happen.

The senior DPIE representative offered to visit the site immediately once travel restrictions due to the corona virus are lifted.  We welcomed his offer and look forward to be able to visit the site with him and take his through all the concerns that have been raised by the local community.  He indicated that the DPIE had corresponded with Renew Estate since the close of objections, many of which he said have gone unanswered.

The Minister was also highly complementary of the document we provided him for the meeting.

The SSAG is hopeful that we may be soon able to get this issue resolved.

We will keep the community updated with developments through the SSAG website.