Dear Mr L’Estrange,
I choked on my biscuit this morning when I read your comments in the Examiner Newspaper (Thursday 2nd September) that a Pulp Mill couldn’t be suitably located in Hampshire, due to the fact it would be visible from Cradle Mountain.
You are now the second CEO of Gunns Ltd who has made this same comment to me, the first was John Gay at a meeting I attended last year. I’m horrified that this shortcut to thinking is still be used by Gunns Ltd !
John stated that any Pulp Mill in Hampshire would be visible from Cradle Mountain, and this would not be a suitable image for one of Tasmania’s “iconic tourist destinations”.
You will have to forgive me. This was red rag to a bull.
I butted in and ask John if the Tamar Valley was also an iconic tourist destination in Tasmania. He replied “maybe to some people”.
I then told him it certainly was to those who have staked their businesses’ future on it.
First point I’d then like you to answer please, If it’s going to look shithouse from hundreds of kilometres away, what will it look like from hundreds of meters away?
Or even a few (6) kilometres away where my quiet and pristine cellar door ticks over wine sales to tourists and visitors, selling the rustic charm and wine getaway experience that is so critical to our Brand in the Tamar Valley ?
What a poor co-incidence your comments coincided with the first visit from Brown Brothers new marketing manager, new owners of Tamar Ridge. What would they be thinking now with this Cradle Mountain scaremongering?
If your Mill proceeds, no one will have a better view in the valley than them.
Second point please, have you actually verified this Timber Communities Australia “mischief” that a pulp mill in Hampshire CAN actually be seen from Cradle Mountain ?
Where in Cradle Mountain exactly are you referring to ? Top of the Icon or somewhere else in the National Park ? Be exact please, and I will most definitely verify this fact or fiction myself.
Interestingly, the other person attending the meeting with Mr Gay last year, Senator Bob Brown, an experienced bush walker in the area, didn’t agree with Mr Gay that it would be possible to see any Hampshire Pulp Mill from Cradle Mountain.
Maybe others with experience may wish to comment on this also.
By all means say Hampshire will hurt your project’s bottom line from double handling costs, or other factors pertinent to your shareholders wealth, but by jingos’ you’ve got to do better than this sort of statement if you want mine, and other people in the Tamar Valley’s respect.
Which, by the way, you are ultimately going to need.
Peter Whish-Wilson, Vineyard operator on the Batman Bridge Peninsular.
Gunns boss talks pulp mill and a gentler forest giant
TASMANIA’S often-troubled timber giant Gunns is set on a new course of trying to heal community conflict with Greg L’Estrange at the helm.
But the chief executive said yesterday that would not involve shifting the proposed $2 billion pulp mill from the controversial Tamar Valley site to Hampshire.
Mr L’Estrange said that reports showing the potential environmental impact of the venture on the North-West were a key factor in the original decision to choose Bell Bay over Hampshire.
“It showed that you would see the stacks of the Hampshire pulp mill from Cradle Mountain _ we didn’t think that would be an appropriate outcome,” he said.
Gunns has plans for a community reference group to meet regularly when the pulp mill is up and running.
The company has sold its chain of hardware stores and Victorian-based Brown Brothers bought its Tamar Ridge winery business.
Its walnut farms, on the East Coast are the last major asset to be sold before the company is back to its core operation as a plantation forest grower feeding a world-class pulp mill, Mr L`Estrange said.
He said former managing director John Gay’s legacy was his belief in the creation of a plantation-based pulp mill as a basis for the future.
“Certainly, that’s what is the company’s major asset and that’s what we have to ensure is maintained and built on,” he said.
