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Tasmanian government intervenes in Mt Wellington cable car debate

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This is a huge worry. The cable car that has been proposed for kunanyi/ Mount Wellington, in Hobart, which has been looking ever less likely to proceed, has just received a massive boost. The Tasmanian government has announced that it will will acquire land, and enact new land ownership laws to help clear the way...

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Updated May 05, 2018 11:53:50

Two rock-climbers have suspended themselves and a makeshift camp high on a cliff face on Mount Wellington in protest to the cable car proposal.

The protesters are set to stay for two nights on the edge of the rock face near the top of the mountain's famed Organ Pipes, 1,100 metres above sea level, in a bid to raise awareness of the divisive plan.

The proposal, from the Mount Wellington Cableway Company (MWCC), has faced stiff opposition from conservationists and sectors of the Hobart community since it was announced that preliminary drilling works had been approved days before the state election.

Climber Simon Bischoff told ABC Radio Hobart he had not sought permission to stay on the cliff face at Mount Wellington - which is also known by its Aboriginal name Kunanyi - but there were public huts already on the mountain and he did not believe he needed to.

"We've got a ledge here and we're just going to camp out tonight," he said.

"There are a lot of different concerns. My main concern is where we're sitting now is where the cable car's going to go over from where it's known as the amphitheatre and I just don't want to see a cable car go over this piece of cliff here."

"It's really special for a lot of people, not just climbers."

More climbers were expected at the site on Saturday, ahead of a planned rally at the Cascade Gardens on Sunday.

Stunt aims to highlight mountain beauty

The group's spokesman Phil Stignit said the Organ Pipes site was world-renowned in the rock climbing community, and the stunt was about attracting widespread attention.

"I think people don't quite realise what a spectacular place it is that we have in our own backyard," he said.

"It's spectacular from all around but people tend to forget that and focus on just driving up the road ... it's a great view and everything as well but there are other aspects to the landscape."

Mr Stignit said there were "cable cars all over the world" and although some tourists would use it if built, it would clutter an already busy Hobart tourism market.

"It would be something more that was on their list for Hobart, and Hobart is somewhere that already has a tourist boom.

"So many people want to come to Hobart," he said.

"What I'm hearing from people in regional areas is there's not so many on the west coast and I believe in the north-west as well. Those are the areas we need to encourage people to come to."

"Hobart's currently limited by the number of beds. It's pretty much full."

The State Government supported the initial cable car proposal, but the Minister for State Growth Peter Gutwein has said in recent days he would consider revoking MWCC's works authority because the plan appeared to have changed.

'No double standards'

In response to the protest, the Mount Wellington Cable Car Company urged the Government to ensure park rules were obeyed by the climbers.

Two days ago, the Government ordered the company to stop all preliminary works and remove surveying equipment, saying it had contravened the permissions granted to it.

The order came after the Wellington Park Management Trust said MWCC surveyors had left tape and equipment on the fire trail near Old Farm Rd, which was prohibited.

The remnants of the investigative works were reported by a member of the public.

The State Growth Minister said he requested advice on "whether the authority I granted needs to be reconsidered, modified or rescinded".

"As the Minister said, 'rules are rules'," the MWCC tweeted.

"We trust park management will investigate that no pegs, rock drilling, stakes or sanitation issues here.

"There can be no double standard now or in future."

Topics: urban-development-and-planning, local-government, states-and-territories, environmental-policy, hobart-7000, tas

First posted May 04, 2018 19:16:59

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Protesters suspend themselves off cliff face in opposition to cable car plans

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Updated May 05, 2018 11:53:50 Two rock-climbers have suspended themselves and a makeshift camp high on a cliff face on Mount Wellington in protest to the cable car proposal. The protesters are set to stay for two nights on the edge of the rock face near the top of the mountain's famed Organ Pipes, 1,100 metres above sea level, in a bid to raise awareness of the divisive plan.

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A familiar sort of fight is unfolding in Tasmania. Development versus the environment. The environment versus development. Only this time, the site's not out in the wilderness far from human eyes. It's smack bang in the middle of Hobart -- or overlooking the city, anyway.
SO WHAT'S THE FIGHT ABOUT?
Kunanyi/Mt Wellington ( the dual name status was introduced in 2013) is the mountain that towers over Hobart. Its summit is 1271m above sea level -- which is roughly as high as four Sydney Towers, or four of Melbourne's Eureka Tower or the Gold Coast's Q1 -- and it dominates the backdrop to Hobart from pretty much everywhere in the city.

The summit of Kunanyi/Mt Wellington is a half hour drive on a road often closed due to snow in winter. But that could be about to change, thanks to a group called the Mt Wellington Cableway Company, which wants to build a cable car from the city to the summit.

The Mt Wellington Cableway Company has the very Whitlam-esque slogan of "It's Time". And maybe, after many false starts, it is. For more than a century, one plan or another has been mooted for Kunanyi/Mt Wellington.

What makes this one different? Here's a video the MWCC released this week of its proposed $54m project:

It's a pretty slick production, and a far cry from the more haphazard plans put forward previously. And the MWCC's dreams came a little closer to fruition this week when the Tassie government announced plans to compulsorily acquire land to kick the project along.
WHO'S BEHIND THE PLAN?
But is it really likely to happen? The Huffington Post Australia put that question to MWCC CEO Adrian Bold.

"It's going to happen," Bold said. "For the first time in the 112 year history [of proposed cableways] we've got legislation and we have the tourism market at a critical mass that supports the project."

Bold is a Tassie-born and Tassie-educated entrepreneur who's the sort of bloke you'd see in a magazine article about young, hip movers and shakers. In 2008 he founded Riser+Gain, a company which, to quote its own blurb, "creates value by developing property that enhances the built and natural environment".

Bold's detractors cut through all that. They call him, simply, and with no lack of disdain, "a property developer". They also point to his long-standing friendship with the Tasmanian state growth minister Matthew Groom, who paved the way for the government to acquire land on Kunanyi/Mt Wellington.

"They play the man, not the ball when they run out of other reasons," Bold said in response to criticism of his relationship with the minister.
WHY ARE RESIDENTS OPPOSED?
Ted Cutlan shies away from calling himself "a dyed-in-the-wool greenie" A retired Tasmanian businessman who loves Tasmania's wilderness, Cutlan is spokesman for the local action group Residents Opposed to the Cable Car (ROCC).

"The idea is that you're changing the place that we love in order to satisfy tourists," Cutlan told The Huffington Post Australia.

"I'm not saying tourism is a bad thing but it has significant consequences sometimes. Tourists see Tasmania as this wonderful beautiful place, so why change what we have in order to give tourists what we think they want?"

ROCC and another action group called Respect The Mountain both feel the state government has flexed its muscle over Hobart Council, and are angry about that. But ultimately their opposition comes down to one thing: the mountain, as they know it, will never look the same.

"Bold's plans are so nebulous," Cutlan said. "You get concept drawings that mean nothing and they change all the time. He wants to have a restaurant and café and viewing platform -- and all of these will have glass facing Hobart."

But as Bold pointed out, there are already numerous structures on its summit, some of which are larger than originally planned for. He also noted that the communications tower is the tallest highest structure in Tasmania. In other words, the mountain ain't exactly pristine to the eye as it stands now.

If the cable car is built to Bold's specifications, the summit will be even more built-up. Restaurants and a visitor centre are planned. To the scheme's opponents, all of this adds up to a serious visual eyesore.

There is also opposition from various outdoors groups. Rock climbers fear for the "organ pipes" rock formation, over which the cablecar will likely pass if built. These stunning 100 metre plus pillars of dolerite could be subject to oil drips from the cableway, climbers claim, not to mention the visual intrusion of thousands of tourists.

Bold describes himself as "passionate" about the future of recreation on Kunanyi/Mt Wellington. He speaks of new opportunities for everyone from mountain bikers to hang gliders, all of whom could use the cableway to ascend the mountain and -- as he puts it -- "park, ride and repeat".
SO WHERE WILL THE CABLE CAR GO?
Nothing is set in stone, but the most likely starting point would be the Cascade Brewery. Ted Cutlan says Cascade is not on side with Bold's plans, but a base station called "Brewery Station" is front and centre of the MWCC masterplan.

From there, gondolas would go to a mid station at Golden Gully Park. Users would then transfer to the aerial tramway proper to the summit. So this would in effect be a second lift, running back-to-back with the first.

And the summit? It would look like this, according to the MWCC website.
THE LAST WORD
Bold and his backers (and financially, there are plenty) see this as the big, mass market tourism project that Tasmania has been crying out for.

"Mona's fantastic, but it has a very niche market appeal," said Bold of Hobart's celebrated Museum of Old and New Art.

"What it doesn't appeal to is young teenagers or kids or the older generation. But this will pull like a magnet. There are only so many people who go to Tassie and can go on walking tracks."

But can a cable car stay true to the wild spirit of the mountain? MWCC's vision statement is all very noble. It says it aims:

To develop and operate a unique and iconic visitor experience that is economically-sound, environmentally-beneficial and socially inclusive for all visitors and which enhances the appreciation, enjoyment and preservation of intrinsic values inherent at the pinnacle and foothills of Mt Wellington (Kunanyi).

"We know we're not going to please everyone, but we're very comfortable when it opens that it will be nowhere near as scary as some people think it's going to be," Bold said.

"I've always thought of myself as an economic environmentalist, as someone who can make money out of caring for the environment."

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Will Tasmania Ever Look And Feel The Same Again?

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A familiar sort of fight is unfolding in Tasmania. Development versus the environment. The environment versus development. Only this time, the site's not out in the wilderness far from human eyes. It's smack bang in the middle of Hobart -- or overlooking the city, anyway. SO WHAT'S THE FIGHT ABOUT?

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The Proposal to deliver, own and operate a world-class cable car and visitor centre for kunanyi / Mt Wellington in Hobart, Tasmania. Discover the masterplan, the project team and community engagement process.

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Updated April 05, 2017 10:14:00

A pie in Hobart's sky, a tourist-pulling money spinner or an environmentally destructive eyesore?

For as long as anyone in Hobart can remember, debate has raged over the idea of a cable car on Mount Wellington, which rises 1,300m behind Tasmania's capital city.

Supporters and opponents are divided along the state's familiar "environment versus development" battleline.

Yet despite all the talk, bluster and fancy videos, we are not actually that much closer to a fully operating cable car than we were in the early 1990s.

There's no development application, no planning approval or even permission from one of the key landholders.

Still, the latest proponent hopes to have a cableway zooming up Mt Wellington by 2020.

This saga has produced some interesting characters, bizarre antics, false promises and planning headaches.

This cable car business goes back a century

Riding a cable car to the top of Mt Wellington has been a dream for more than a century.

The idea was first proposed in 1905, even before a road was built to the summit.

In 1931, a fresh proposal aimed to run an "aerial cable tramway" from the Springs, a site about halfway up the mountain, and fancied Hobart being touted as a skiing destination.

But given the recent Depression, the promoters figured the plan was best deferred.

Fifty-six years later, enter Hobart engineer Tim Burbury who, backed by a Swiss manufacturer, spruiked the "Skyway" cable car launching from the historic Cascade Brewery site.

Visitors could stay at a summit hotel, dine out and in winter carve some turns on a new ski field.

Opponents quickly mobilised with an angry town hall meeting.

In 1994, as the long-running stoush continued, the stones of the famous Keen's Curry sign on the hillside of South Hobart were rearranged to read "No Cable Car".

As tensions flared, sneaky tactics were used to win the public relations battle.

When a "confidential document" detailing cable car plans was produced by opponents, Mr Burbury claimed he planted it in his rubbish to prove his rivals were going through his bins.

Mr Burbury revised his plan in 2004 but it remained unrealised on his death in 2010.

Carrying the baton now is Adrian Bold's Mount Wellington Cable Car Company, proposing an eight-seat gondola to a mid-station clearing at Golden Gully Park, featuring a zip line and BBQ facilities.

Then it's a 3.5-kilometre trip to the summit in an "aerial tramway", with the whole journey taking 11 minutes.

For a local family, the ride would cost about $60, Mr Bold has said.

It too starts from the Cascade Brewery.

The windswept and rocky top would be transformed with a tourism hub including a visitor centre, restaurant and wine and whisky bar, but alas no ski field.

Mr Bold said his plan was to remove the existing viewing shelter.

"Our intention has always been to replace the existing shelter with another that is sympathetic to the skyline, warm and less exposed to the prevailing wind," he said.

"Whether we are allowed to do so will depend on the planning conditions."

The whole project is expected to cost more than $50 million.

Who's the (latest) man with the plan?

Development consultant Mr Bold first came on the cable car scene in 2012 as a man with a new - well newish - idea.

Soon he was spruiking a ready team of Canadian investors - a country full of cable cars - with about $30 million ready to splash.

Things started well when laws were passed clearing the way for commercial development at the top of the mountain, although with some pesky caveats.

Mr Bold's company had a feasibility study done by October 2013, which gave him the confidence to tell reporters at the time the project would be up and running in 2017.

But that hope faded as Mr Bold bounced between the mountain's caretaker, the Wellington Park Management Trust, and council's multitude of approvals.

By the start of this year he needed a win and the Tasmanian Liberal Government delivered, vowing to take control of land on Mount Wellington needed to build the cable car.

This means Mr Bold can get the all-important "landholder consent" from the State Government rather than the council.

He would then have to return to face a hostile council that has the final say on his much-awaited DA.

But if their arguments to reject it aren't in accordance with planning law, Mr Bold can appeal to the state's planning tribunal.

In the past five years, Mr Bold has faced a number of questions over the project's visual impact and viability.

Leaked plans showed the height of the towers may reach 75 metres, horrifying those who feared the infrastructure would ruin the mountain vista.

The proponents now assure the highest towers will not surpass 30 metres.

Last year, eyebrows were raised when Carlton United Breweries (CUB), which owns the Cascade site, revealed it had not given any support to the cable car project.

This was at odds with Mr Bold's reassurances at the time the brewery was on side.

Like many, CUB is still waiting on the development application.

During that time the Canadians disappeared, but Mr Bold assures Australian investors have since filled the void.

So who's up for a monorail, er, cable car?

Some of the state's most powerful people have long supported the cable car, many coming from the Liberal Party which Mr Bold openly supports.

In the late 1980s, opponents rubbished Mr Burbury's proposal as then Premier Robin Gray's "monorail".

Tasmania's present-day leader Will Hodgman has trumpeted the cableway for more than a decade.

His colleague, Environment Minister Matthew Groom, pushed its case in his first speech to Parliament in 2010.

State Labor, on the other hand, has been noticeably absent from the long-running debate but recently said the project should be put out to tender.

The Tasmanian Tourism Council has long prosecuted the cable car's case, arguing the current Mount Wellington tourism experience was far from world class.

Current Hobart Mayor Sue Hickey and former mayor Damon Thomas also like the idea and have copped plenty of flack for it.

Even Lonely Planet has got in on the act, describing the proposal as a "breathtaking attraction".

Overall, supporters argue more tourists means more money for Hobart with one analysis putting the broader economic benefit at up to $100 million a year.

In short, they think the business case stacks up.

And who wants to shoot it down?

Those fighting the cableway argue it tramples on Mt Wellington environmentally, culturally and visually.

For starters, the majority of aldermen on the Hobart City Council are uneasy about the project at best.

In 2013, Indigenous leader Heather Sculthorpe was infuriated cable car proponents registered the mountain's Indigenous name "kunanyi" as an internet domain name in an attempt to promote the project.

She accused Mr Bold of ripping off Aboriginal culture - and pronouncing the name incorrectly - and has since vowed to fight the cable car to its end.

The Tasmanian Conservation Trust and the Greens vehemently oppose the cable car for being a potential foothold for "unfettered" development, intruding on the mountain's ecological landscape.

Community groups Respect the Mountain No Cable Car and Residents Opposed to the Cable Car (ROCC) have fought the project at every turn.

ROCC spokesman Ted Cutlan, who has been at it since the early 1990s, fears the mountain will be ruined by a tourism hub at the top.

When it was pointed out the summit was already dotted with "eyesores" in the form of transmission towers, he said he hoped technological advancements would resign the towers to the scrapheap, allowing the pinnacle to be returned to its "unadorned state".

"It's that visual impact on the mountain that most upsets me. The fact that something's there now does not mean to say we should keep adding stuff," Mr Cutlan said.

Over the past two decades it's been difficult to pin down exactly where the weight of public opinion sits.

But in 2013, about 200 of more than 260 submissions to a master plan for the mountain were against the idea.

Inevitable or never ever?

Some opponents see the cable car as a looming financial failure, a potentially abandoned rusting reminder of a bad idea.

The proponents say if the venture fails, a capital reserve trust fund will pay for the cable car to be dismantled and parts sold-off on the global second-hand ski-field market.

But the Mount Wellington Cable Car company will not release financial modelling, a break-even analysis and the business plan for commercial reasons.

Its website says there's a waiting list of Australian investors and the most recent capital raise achieved a "32 per cent oversubscribed result".

But does that assurance answer the basic question - is there enough cash to build the thing?

Mr Bold declined to address any cost-related questions the ABC emailed to him.

But respected economist Saul Eslake said there's nothing "underhand" or "dodgy" about keeping those financial details from the public.

"The [oversubscribed result] shows the company is not having any trouble thus far raising the money needed to progress the project to this point," he said.

"Though that amount would be a fraction of what's needed once the project is approved."

Seems it's here to stay, real or imagined

If one looked into a crystal ball and saw Mount Wellington in 2030 what would they see?

Will a cable car be going full steam, capitalising on Tasmania's tourism boom, delivering millions of dollars to the wider economy?

Will opponents concede it's not quite as bad as they thought?

Or will the mountain be as it is today, and on top standing a much greyer Mr Bold promising to a press pack no more delays, this time for real a 2033 opening date - financed by a new round of investors, wait for it, from New Zealand.

Topics: tourism, industry, travel-and-tourism, lifestyle-and-leisure, environment, environmental-impact, hobart-7000, tas

First posted April 04, 2017 09:32:30

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Why is Hobart in knots about having a cable car running up Mt Wellington?

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Updated April 05, 2017 10:14:00 A pie in Hobart's sky, a tourist-pulling money spinner or an environmentally destructive eyesore? For as long as anyone in Hobart can remember, debate has raged over the idea of a cable car on Mount Wellington, which rises 1,300m behind Tasmania's capital city.

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Updated May 07, 2018 10:00:05

Thousands of people descended on Cascade Gardens in South Hobart to protest against a plan to run a cable car up to the summit of Mount Wellington-kunanyi.

So many people were packed into the park for the Mountain Mayday rally - held near the proposed base station for the project - that some had to stand outside the fence on the road in order to see.

The speakers included Tasmanian author Richard Flanagan, former Australian Greens leader Bob Brown and independent MP Andrew Wilkie.

They said the process for the cable car development had been corrupt and lacking transparency and community consultation.

Mr Flanagan talked down the likelihood the cable car project would ever get up, likening its chances to MP Rene Hidding getting the Speaker's role that was snatched away from him by fellow Liberal Sue Hickey earlier this week.

"The Hobart cable car company says the Hobart public support the cable car," he said.

"Rene Hidding's more likely to become Speaker than you can believe a word the cable car company says.

"The cable car company says they'll take the kids free up to the top of the mountain.

"Well, I've got some news - the mountain's always been free. Kids have been enjoying it forever and I was one of them.

"I've loved the mountain since I was little. To have this wonderland, this thumb of the southwest sitting itself into the pie of our city always seemed to be a miracle.

"I've walked all over it, camped in snow caves as a kid, I climb the zig-zag most weeks, I've watched the snow swirl round the columns of the organ pipes and I've walked on into the wonder."

Referring to the state's housing crisis, Mr Flanagan asked: "Why is this government more interested in building a cable car than houses for the homeless?"

He also targeted the pro-development outlook of the Hodgman Government.

"Tasmanians have a way of life that is deeply and profoundly precious to us," he said.

Hodgman's unwavering support got people offside: Wilkie

Bob Brown said "kunanyi is in our safekeeping and kunanyi will be saved from this cable car".

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie told the crowd the strong support the Hodgman Government had provided the sole proponent of the project, the Mount Wellington Cable Car company (MWCC) led by Adrian Bold, had put many people offside.

"This is a monumental achievement to get so many of us so cross," he told the crowd.

"Even those people that support the idea of a cable car, or are at least open minded to the idea of a cable car, even they're getting cross now because what they see is unacceptable.

"In the last week, I had one person who supports the cable car say 'but it really should be publicly owned'.

"I heard someone else say I support the cable car and I think it should be privately owned but I'm worried it's going to be bailed out by the taxpayer."

'Tasmania expects us to get on with it'

Government Minister Michael Ferguson said the process was transparent and had been proven so.

"You couldn't be more transparent than the Minister for State Growth [Peter Gutwein] cancelling a permit to ensure best practices are being followed," he said.

"There is a Green constituency in Tasmania that will never accept any development on Mount Wellington and that is what you are seeing.

"We understand there's different points of view on the cable car, but overwhelmingly people of Tasmania do support that [the cable car], voted for that and expect us to get on with it."

Luke Martin from the Tourism Industry Council of Tasmania said the public needed to consider the alternatives.

"Within a few years there is likely to be more than a million people heading to the summit each year," he said.

"It is simply unsustainable to continue to have more and more vehicles and tour buses driving up a century-old road and a seemingly ever-expanding car park.

"What do they propose we do? Shuttle buses that mean expanding the summit road? Limiting visitor numbers through some kind of fee or quota system?

"Ironically, across the globe it is conservationists who are pushing for the development of cable way technologies."

Company to 'stick it out'

On Monday Mr Bold said the MWCC was not deterred by the protest and the large turnout.

[It] doesn't necessarily change our view of what the social licence should be," he said.

"We're quite aware that there are hundreds of thousands of people who didn't go to Cascade Gardens.

"We've been listening to the people for a good six, seven-and-a-half years now and meeting with residents one-on-one, collecting and responding to thousands of emails.

"We just have to stick it out, essentially."

MWCC ordered to cease works

The proposal from the MWCC has faced stiff opposition from conservationists and sectors of the Hobart community since it was announced that preliminary drilling works had been approved days before the state election.

Up until last week, the Government had always given MWCC its full backing, assuming control of land MWCC needed to access to conduct testing.

But on Thursday, State Growth Minister Peter Gutwein ordered MWCC to cease its activity after the Wellington Park Management Trust said the surveyors had left tape and equipment on the fire trail near Old Farm Rd, which is prohibited.

Mr Gutwein said he had requested advice on "whether the authority I granted needs to be reconsidered, modified or rescinded".

This came days after it was revealed MWCC had told South Hobart residents the Government had asked them to adopt a low profile in the media.

"We were asked by the Government to actually keep our media activity on this quiet," company chair Jude Franks said in a transcript.

Topics: activism-and-lobbying, community-and-society, urban-development-and-planning, government-and-politics, hobart-7000, tas

First posted May 06, 2018 11:44:26

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'The mountain's always been free,' Flanagan tells cable car rally

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Updated May 07, 2018 10:00:05 Thousands of people descended on Cascade Gardens in South Hobart to protest against a plan to run a cable car up to the summit of Mount Wellington-kunanyi.

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MWCC 2017 Teaser (with CGI) kunanyi / Mt Wellington Cable Car

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Updated May 06, 2018 10:44:31

The company seeking to build a cable car to the top of Mount Wellington has been told to stop all preliminary work and remove equipment, with the State Growth Minister announcing he is considering revoking the company's works authority because the project appears to have changed.

The Mount Wellington Cableway Company (MWCC) was granted permission to start drilling and surveying on the mountain behind Hobart - which is also known by its Aboriginal name kunanyi - just days before the March state election was called.

MWCC had been expecting to start preliminaryworks this month or the next on the project, project, which has been hotly debated by the local community.

The company does not require permission to survey in Wellington Park and has been doing so over the past week.

But the Wellington Park Management Trust said the surveyors had left tape and equipment on the fire trail near Old Farm Rd, which was prohibited. The remnants of the investigative works were reported by a member of the public.

The company was told to pack up from the South Hobart site, which is understood to be the company's new preferred location for the cable car base terminal.

But the site of preliminary works appears to have upset Minister for State Growth Peter Gutwein, who granted the authority when the base terminal was proposed to be at the Cascade Brewery, which is owned by Carlton and United Breweries.

"Whilst I understand that the works are very minor - some surveyors' pegs and surveyors' tape - the company is yet to satisfy the requirements of the authority that I issued them, in relation to gaining an approved safety management plan," Mr Gutwein told Parliament today.

"They don't hold a permit for this type of works under the Trust.

"Further, as the project now appears to be different to that which I considered when granting the authority under the Cable Car Facilitation Act, I have requested advice as to whether the authority I granted needs to be reconsidered, modified or rescinded."

Mr Gutwein did not elaborate on whether any other aspects of the project had changed since he gave the authority.

"There are rules to follow and we expect that those rules will be followed to the letter," he said.

The minister said he expected to have advice in coming days about whether he needed to revoke the authority.

It is not the first time MWCC has acted on the mountain without permission.

In March, the company did not seek the required permit before filming a promotional video on the mountain.

In a statement, MWCC Chair Jude Franks said surveying ribbons and pegs had now been removed from the mountain.

"MWCC acknowledges leaving ribbons in the park requires a permit and we take full responsibility on behalf of our subcontractors for any damage caused by these ribbons," she said.

Ms Franks said the company was considering the alignment of the cableway - meaning the company was considering starting at Old Farm Rd rather than the brewery.

"Whilst a decision is yet to be made, we acknowledge the Minister is seeking advice on this matter."

On April 24, the company said it had not commenced any site investigations requiring the use of the authority, because it had been delayed by the State Government seeking further information to each task.

Questions over process, transparency

The Greens' leader Cassy O'Connor said the Minister needed to give more detail on why he was reconsidering MWCC's authority for preliminary works.

"We don't have any clarity about how different the project is now from what was proposed in the legislation and the debate," Ms O'Connor said.

She said the Minister had been caught in a trap of his own making, after quietly granting the initial authority to MWCC.

"This is not Mr Gutwein being a good guy, this is the Minister and the proponent being pulled up, legally, by the Wellington Park Trust."

Ted Cutlan with Residents Opposed to the Cable Car said the process and lack of transparency around the project stank.

He said he wanted to see a penalty imposed on the company.

"They're serial offenders with regard to not getting proper permits."

Mr Cutlan said the Wellington Park Management Trust should be keeping a closer eye on MWCC's activities, instead of relying on members of the public to report breaches.

"I see the Trust as nothing more than an administrative body that has no real oversight, they certainly haven't been keeping a rein on MWCC and they should be accountable for it."

Topics: lifestyle-and-leisure, travel-and-tourism, environmental-impact, environment, occupational-health-and-safety, south-hobart-7004

First posted May 03, 2018 11:53:22

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Mount Wellington cable car on-hold as company instructed to stop preliminary works

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The company seeking to build a cable car to the top of Hobart's Mount Wellington is told to stop works and remove equipment, with the Tasmanian Government announcing they are considering revoking the company's works authority because the project appears to have changed.

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Please join us to keep kunanyi free of massive pylons and cables, service roads, bus size carriages across the Organ Pipes and a multi-storey building with restaurants and whisky bars on the summit.

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The benefits to the cable car

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The Proposal to deliver, own and operate a world-class cable car and visitor centre for kunanyi / Mt Wellington in Hobart, Tasmania. Discover the masterplan, the project team and community engagement process.