2015 has been one hell of a year, brought about by a proposal for a major motocross facility in our community.  Most of our time this year has gone into working with community members trying to get this proposal squashed.

There were a few posts on the fight earlier in the year, and in reality it took up much of the time of many people from mid-December 2014 when we first found out about it to the end of May, when the proposal was refused in the local Council by a seven/nil vote.

In our more hopeful moments we ventured to think that this would be the end of it: 232 objecting submissions to Council (vs 2 supporting submissions) and a resounding defeat in Council; you would think that the proponent might have realised that he had picked the wrong place and the wrong community.

Unfortunately the proponent appealed in the Planning and Environment Court in July.  Even though the Court rules require that appeals are progressed within six weeks (or three months depending on which document you read – but the six weeks seems to take precedence), there was no movement on the appellant’s part for some four months.  Since then they have undertaken to provide documents to all the other parties, but these have not been received more than one month after their own, self-imposed deadline for providing them.

The delay is very stressful for all concerned, and I cannot help wondering whether this is the intent of the delays.

But we will fight on.  Seven members of the community have elected to become co-respondents to the appeal, as has one non-government organisation – and of course the Council is the main respondent, since it is their decision that is being appealed.

Regardless of the ongoing motocross business, our attempts at living as sustainably as possible go on, and will be the focus of part of the posts on this blog from now on.

If you are still among our patient readers, thank you for your patience.  It is very much appreciated.  And if you are one of our new viewers who joined during 2015, welcome, and we will attempt to give you more of what has attracted you to this site.

Amazing as it seems, despite the fact that I managed only eight postings here since the beginning of the year, the readership continued go grow right through to October when it peaked at 1,665 views by 1,175 visitors for the month.

Since then numbers have slightly declined, with only 811 visitors so far this month (not surprising given the lack of new material) – though that is nearly twice as many as in January.  Year on year, we have had twice as many views and visitors in 2015 as in 2014, and four times as many as in 2013.