By STEVE GRAY
SOUTHERN Downs Regional Council has accepted a tender for the old Applethorpe TAFE site.
A Special Meeting of council on Monday accepted a non-conforming offer from Red Hill Berries Pty Ltd for the tender price of $810,000, subject to conditions.
These involve access to water stored on Lot 2 of the land which was subdivided from Lot 1 before it was advertised for sale.
Red Hill Berries will pay a further $35,000 a year to lease Lot 2, which contains a large ring tank for the storage of waste water.
Red Hill Berries will have to agree that council has permanent access rights to the ring tank and access to the water it holds.
In turn council must agree that the company has the right to access any future recycled effluent stored in the ring tank, subject to any existing effluent users group agreements with Council.
The lessee’s total take of water from the property and from Four Mile Creek is not to exceed the existing water licence allocations.
Any usage of recycled effluent in excess of this allocation will be subject to the applicable council fees for recycled effluent.
Seven councillors voted for the agreement, with Crs Bartley and Pennisi opposing it.
Cr Vic Pennisi said although council accepted the highest tender, there were “strategically better applicants”.
He said the ring tank should be kept as community infrastructure.
“I support rationalising council’s infrastructure, but I just don’t know the community has got the best outcome,” Cr Pennisi said.
“I’m disappointed we didn’t discuss the best land use, and I think we undersold the water infrastructure, it was undervalued.”
Cr Bartley, stressing that he was making a personal comment, said he was mindful of existing council agreements relating to the effluent re-use water.
Training ceased at Applethorpe TAFE College in 2006 and teaching was transferred to the Queensland College of Wine Tourism in Stanthorpe.
The property was acquired from the Queensland government by the former Stanthorpe Shire council in January 2008.
Previous expressions of interests and written tenders were called for the site in 2008 and 2009 but the only area leased was land at the rear of the property, for farming.
When council discussed the sale in October it decided offers would not include the water storage facility, which would remain in Council ownership.
