Published on Monday, 1 October 2012 at 12:00:00 AM
Local residents struggle with the onset of rapid change due to Chevron's $29 billion Wheatstone LNG project at Ashburton North, 12 kilometres west of Onslow.
Although Chevron will provide social infrastructure benefits to the community of Onslow in the future, there is continued unrest that the project and the subsequent activity have changed Onslow and the community’s worlds forever.
In spite of considerable community consultation over the past seven years, the impending impact of the construction of a large LNG plant was not tangible or apparent to many people in the community.
Shire of Ashburton CEO, Jeff Breen, has been considerably involved in how Council is managing the rapidly changing face of Onslow.
“Even though there’s been quite a lot of public consultation, until such a time that it happens people don’t quite understand the impact and some are only seeing the negative things at the moment,” said Mr Breen.
“A lot more activity in town, a lot more hi-vis shirts, four wheel drives with flags on … there’s a real visible change as well as some of the social issues, but we’re not seeing the benefits yet,” he said.
“Benefits like hospitals and education. Still, something that intrigues me is what we are doing right now is for people that aren’t there yet. It’s for the 1600-odd people that are coming over the next four years.”
Mr Breen said there is anecdotal evidence of residents feeling forced to leave town because of sky-rocketing property prices and schools finding it difficult to access teachers help.
Mr Breen said the Shire had approached Chevron and Landcorp to come up with a service workers camp, which did not eventuate.
Discovery Holiday Park have now taken such a camp on as a private entity.
“The positive things that are happening are the expansion of Four Mile, the Onslow airport and upgrading the town so things are starting to happen, but the land release is the major issue at the moment,” said Mr Breen.
“Everybody, in good faith, thought it would be happening in 2012 but it’s probably a little way off.”
Read the full article in Inside Ashburton
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