Bushfire Risk Makes Proposed Northern Regional Prison Site Unviable

Media release – Concerned Residents Opposed to the Westbury Prison Site, 31 July 2020

Bushfire Risk makes Proposed Northern Regional Prison Site Unviable

The Concerned Residents Opposed to the Westbury Prison Site (CROWPS) consider the hastily-announced proposed new site for the Northern Regional Prison at Westbury may well be deemed unsuitable due to bushfire risk following the judgement by Justice Blow to overturn the decision to approve the use of the former school in the township of Meander for a drug and rehabilitation centre.

Justice Blow’s decision rules out the use of a site in a bushfire prone area for a ‘vulnerable use’ unless there is an “overriding benefit to the community, the risk can be managed to an acceptable level”, and, most importantly, “there is no suitable alternative lower risk site available.” Locating a prison on the Brushy Rivulet Crown Reserve would not comply with the Meander Valley Interim Planning Scheme 2013.

The Land Use Planning and Approvals Act identifies a number of vulnerable and hazardous uses that, where possible, should not be sited in bushfire prone areas. These include aged care, hospitals, educational care services and correctional institutions.

How can the Government justify placing prisoners, who are deemed vulnerable, in a maximum-security prison situated in a bushfire prone area at the Brushy Rivulet Crown Reserve and ensure their safety if a bushfire was to occur? Mr Dale Webster from the Department of Justice stated at a recent meeting that, should a bushfire occur, prisoners would be evacuated to the Risdon Correctional Centre. The logistics of evacuating the entire population of the prison from one end of the State to the other quickly and securely, whilst ensuring the safety of the wider Tasmanian community, is both impractical and ill-considered.

Isn’t it obvious from Justice Blow’s ruling that the Brushy Rivulet Crown Reserve site for the proposed Northern Regional Prison is an irresponsible decision by the Government and to propose building a maximum security prison on this inadequate site would surely not be permitted by the planning committee on these merits alone?