Organisers of the Tooradin Yamaha Australian Open of Minibike Supercross, Mick Sinclair and Adam Bailey, say they are shattered that the popular event will have to be postponed after Casey Council refused to grant a planning permit. Picture: Stewart Chambers.By Alison Noonan
A MOTORCYCLE event that was expected to attract hundreds of riders from across Australia and bring in thousands of spectators to Tooradin on Saturday has been cancelled.
Southside Promotions owner Mick Sinclair said the popular Yamaha Australian Open of Minibike Supercross had to be postponed indefinitely after Casey Council refused to issue a planning permit.
The community event had been due to take place at Rutter Park Reserve on Saturday.
Mr Sinclair, a Pakenham resident, said he was extremely disappointed with the decision and could not understand why council would not support such a high profile event.
He claimed council officers told him they couldn’t grant a permit until Friday, 16 December, one day before the competition.
“All but one segment of the council office backed our event 100 per cent from the start and promised to permit the event without a hitch,” Mr Sinclair said.
“However, despite many pleading emails and presenting all the necessary paperwork and plans, the planning department was not willing to issue the final necessary permit pertaining to construction of the track until the day before the actual event.
“Those who understand the logistics in making an event like this possible would know that to import 1500 square metres of clay and build a professional track is impossible to achieve in one day.”
Mr Sinclair said he issued a press release stating that the event would have to be cancelled, to which he received a promising letter from council planning officers that they would try to get the permit through earlier.
“Things were looking good. We thought it was going to happen,” he said.
“Then we got a phone call last week saying that a resident had objected and council had decided to refuse the planning permit.
“That was it. It was all over.”
Mr Sinclair said the news had destroyed months of hard work and money that the three-man team behind Southside Promotions had poured into their first event.
He said he would now have to alert the 120 riders booked for the event, major sponsors and spectators.
“We will only lose about $1000 but we had put so much work into this.
“I started this event management company with two other friends earlier in the year and we all worked flat out to make our first ever event a success. Adam quit his job to work on this.
“It is incredibly embarrassing and disappointing for us that something that seems so small put a stop to preparations.
“This event would have brought thousands of people into Tooradin and boosted the local economy.
“We are now endeavouring to have the competition rescheduled to early 2006 and use the extra time to plan an even more exciting and enjoyable event,” Mr Sinclair said.
Full Throttle Sports owner Yarrive Konsky said he was at a loss to understand how council could knock back this year’s permit after approving the Tooradin Summer Supercross event in February.
“That land is provided for these types of events yet, every time someone tries to organise something, there seems to be trouble,” he said.
“One would assume that a permit could have been issued and readily available based on past events.
“I don’t know why council makes it so hard,” he said.
Casey planning manager Bob Baggio said the competition organisers failed to allow sufficient time for council to process the application, despite warnings of a similar nature following last year’s Supercross.
“The same thing happened last year when the organisers didn’t leave us enough time to consider the application.
“This year we were only given 17 days to issue a permit. However we have to refer the permit to the Department of Sustainability and Environment and VicRoads and then advertise the application,” he said.
Mr Baggio said organisers needed to allow at least two to three months for the council to consider large-scale planning applications.
“We support the Supercross event but we basically ran out of time to process the application, go before the planning committee for determination and set up,” he said.
