Following its approval in June, Venn Energy hosted community drop-in sessions for its Cooba Solar Project, though some locals feel it is too little, too late.

The project includes a solar farm and battery energy storage system, covering 1147 hectares at Colbinabbin.

The Cooba Solar Project will have a capacity of up to 500MW and BESS capacity of up to 300MW.

Despite protests from the community and formal opposition from Campapse Shire Council, the site was approved by the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning on June 5.

Venn Energy hosted sessions on Tuesday, September 30 and Wednesday, October 1 at Colbinabbin Memorial Hall to answer community questions and seek input into its community benefit fund.

Neighbouring landholder Gerard Kennedy has been among those against the project and attended one of the drop-in sessions.

He believes these discussions were overdue, and there was not enough notice about the sessions, such as through posters, letter drops or in the community newspaper.

“I found it very hard to find (information), my wife did end up finding a flyer ... she tried to register and the QR code was broken,” Mr Kennedy said.

“We've been very disappointed with the lack of community consultation.

“There’s major issues that, I feel, haven’t been addressed through the government’s approval process.

“The quality of the soils was the major thing that was understated, so we brought up those issues ... we had some fairly robust discussions for probably 45 minutes.”

The project has received approvals from government and is in its management plans and consents phase, which includes emergency and bushfire; traffic and construction; and environment and waterways consultation.

At the sessions, Venn Energy provided updates to the project timeline and showed a visualisation of the future site.

Locals could also suggest recipients of the community benefit fund, which will contribute $200,000 annually into groups or initiatives they see fit.

“The Cooba Solar Project will help Australia meet its emissions reduction targets, strengthen reliability and leverage existing grid infrastructure, while unlocking new income streams for regional areas, creating direct jobs and partnering with local suppliers and contractors,” a Venn Energy spokesperson said.

“These sessions are designed to provide information, answer questions and hear directly from the community about matters that are most important to them for the benefit fund of $200,000 per annum.”

Despite initiatives such as the community benefit fund, Mr Kennedy said Colbinabbin locals remained disappointed to see the project moving forward.

“The community is still dead against it, I would say,” he said.

“The sentiment that I hear is very upset about how the community have essentially been shut out of the process.

“The amount of work that’s gone into providing information for the project then to get no feedback from government through that approvals process, is very disappointing.”

A community reference group has been created for the project to help inform Venn Energy’s decisions, including for the community benefit fund.

Suggestions for the initiative can be made via surveymonkey.com/r/Z9VFGJ9

Community reference group expressions of interest can be directed to info@coobasolarproject.com.au

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