I got a call this afternoon from the Evening Star about the Southern Cement fiasco.  They’ve got wind of the council officers’ proposed climbdown and wanted to know what the Noise Action Group thought.  They actually sounded angry, I suppose they got a promise out of Steve Rock who saw fit to cancel the meeting as soon as he thought that no one was looking.

It’s not the refusal of a couple of council officials to meet us that rankles, councillors from both parties are keeping us up to date and the Council Officials will have to meet with residents soon in some form. What rankles is the refusal of Uniland/Southern Cement’s Ipswich manager, Barry Neale, to even talk to us.

This seems more like commercial suicide than anything else.  Who would want to deal with a company that is constantly at risk of being shut down by a private court action, council enforcement or public protest?

What better way to calm down angry residents than meeting them?

With the noise from the cement ship still going as strong as ever Steve Rock, the Environmental services manager for Ipswich council, agreed in the Evening Star to meet with the Noise Action Group.

Yesterday Steve Rock, has cancelled a meeting with the Noise Action Group without any explanation, saying that he will be announcing what he will be doing (or not doing) on the noise that goes on without explanation or apology.

I’ve also had councillors contacting me saying that he is lobbying them to shut the investigation down and trying to bounce them into releasing a press statement allowing Uniland SA to merely contact the makers of the unloading equipment and do, nothing.

No help to the residents to monitor the noise, no meetings between residents and Barry Neale, nothing.