25/08/2025
🌏 Renewables Done Right: Support a Balanced Energy Transition
👉 Zoning for both clean energy and carbon-efficient dairy in Southwest Victoria
⚠️ The Swansons Lane Garvoc Windfarm is simply in the wrong place
🏡 Our Story
• We are one of 13 family farms in Terang directly impacted by the Swansons Lane windfarm.
• The project sits outside the Renewable Energy Zone, in the heart of our dairy district.
• Since January 2022, we’ve tried to build essential worker housing — recognised as urgently needed on Southwest dairy farms by government. Yet our application has been objected to by the windfarm company, dragged through VCAT, and still unresolved.
💰 Local Economy
• 1 single farm like ours requires over $11 million upfront investment in land, livestock, and machinery.
• Around $3.4 million per year goes back into the community through wages and running costs.
• How can we expect to encourage future investment if farmers can lose the ability to develop essential infrastructure on their own land? Our local dairylands deserve priority zoning protection to boost investor confidence in funding their development.
🌏 Environment
• Southwest dairy is world-class in carbon efficiency.
• Our milk is processed and value-added locally — not shipped from less efficient systems overseas.
• With stricter emissions rules coming, this is exactly where dairy investment should be encouraged: our best land for the most efficient food and milk production.
📜 Government Policy & Leadership
• Victorian Planning Policy is clear: our most productive farmland must be protected from incompatible developments.
• There are vast areas already identified as well-suited for renewables — but our dairy district is specifically identified as poorly compatible by VicGrid’s own maps.
• We’re asking our community to stand with us and urge government to honour its own policies — protect Warrnambool, Cobden, Timboon and Terang’s strategic dairy zone as a precedent for the future.
📧 How to Object
Email: [email protected]
Objections must:
1️⃣ Be made in writing/emailed to the Planning Minister
2️⃣ Include your reasons for objecting
3️⃣ State how you would be affected. As a community member, you are.
Visit Sustainable Garvoc for an example objection letter, and other supporting information.
