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The Battle for Regenerating Spring Creek

Spring Creek meanders its way from the Otways; down the valleys of Torquay and Bellbrae, through heathland, woodland and swamps, brushing against the ever encroaching housing developments, past Jan Juc, and finally out to the Bass Strait. It’s more than just a stretch of water, it’s a complex ecosystem sustaining everything around it. Pre-settlement, the native reeds made baskets, its waters were home to eels, turtles, platypus and fish. It allowed both the Wadawurrung people and countless animals such as kangaroos, wombats, wedge tailed eagles and quolls to thrive in the surrounding area for thousands of years.

It’s been 180 years since colonial settlers arrived in the area. While Torquay was initially named Spring Creek, much of the creek’s unique ecosystems, such as coastal heaths, woodlands, wetlands, and marshes, have been razed in favour of the city’s expansion with seemingly endless housing developments, farms and a golf course now built upon its banks.

In spite of this, Spring Creek is still a place where kangaroos lay in the grass, wedge-tailed eagles nest and seek solitude, and a team of determined residents work to bring the valley back to its former glory. It’s also one of the last remaining homes of the Bellarine Yellow Gum. A species endemic to the Bellarine Peninsula and critical to both the landscape and the plans to save Spring Creek as a whole.

It takes 100 years for a Bellarine Gum to mature and this fact has become one of the cornerstones of Surf Coast Energy Group’s (SCEG) 100 year plan to reimagine Spring Creek as a sustainable living landscape.

SCEG is chaired and was formed by Graeme Stockton in 2007, “I was in central America in 1998 [and] that was previously the hottest year … I saw all the forests burning down and I decided that if we were serious about tackling climate change then we’d have our own group.”

Up until 2016 SCEG mainly undertook “random projects without any strategy attached to them”. According to Graeme it wasn’t until the last couple of years that they realised that to seriously address the sustainability issues brought on from climate change, they needed to create longer term policies that could preempt any issues that 21st century communities would be facing.

One of the issues SCEG is tackling is a proposal to put over 1,700 houses along the Spring Creek valley west of Duffields Road. Over 40 years ago, the Spring Creek valley was designated a ‘future urban zone’. Decisions, including the building of a private school, were made on this designation. Supporters of development in the area call upon the surging population, which doubles during peak seasons to over 40,000, and skyrocketing house prices where the median price is over $1 million. Rental availability averages less than 100 dwellings according to realestate.com leading to young families who grew up in the area being unable to afford to live there.

Those in opposition of the development state that these properties won’t end up in the hands of the average person; there’s too much demand. They firmly believe the developers’ agendas aren’t about affordable housing, especially with Bells Beach right around the corner. The rejection of the development proposal seemed entirely possible when over a third of Torquay residents protested the proposed development back in 2018.

The residents of the Surf Coast Shire were then given two options to vote on; Option 1 being in support of zoning the land as low density residential with plans to protect the Bellarine Yellow Gum, and Option 2 to essentially leave the area as is and let the community revitalise it.

When the two options were given, the community’s decision was a resounding vote to secure the Duffields Road boundary and protect Spring Creek from development. Over 3000 submissions were received with only a small percentage in favour of Option 1.

In 2019 the state premier Dan Andrews made a commitment to the community at the Supreme Court, “… and those commitments will be honoured in full. Duffields Road is the boundary, not one foot further. I can’t be any clearer than that”. Yet the battle is not won, and the land bordering Spring Creek is still up for contention facing yet another court date as developers and certain landowners take the Minister for Planning and Surf Coast Shire Council to the Victorian Supreme Court on ‘misconduct of process’.

To create this system, it’s paramount to establish land management practices as Indigenous Australians did, holistically. For the moment, this means SCEG and Graeme take seeds from the Bellarine Yellow Gums, grow them as tube stock and reintroduce them to the land where they’ve from. The young trees are protected from rabbits and kangaroos with fencing, provided through donations from brands such as Patagonia. But the future, according to Graeme, sees the land along the creek and the Bellarine Yellow Gums owned, protected and managed by the community, as a whole, as it used to be. The only way to ensure this endemic species’ survival is to plant its roots in a stable future.

While the community trust is still in the planning stages, the wheels are firmly in motion. As much of Spring Creek’s most critical ecosystems are located on private land, community support is key. Torquay is unique in that there’s been a long history of sustainability projects involving the community. With support from big brands like Patagonia, beach clean ups and tree plantings have been undertaken stretching back to the 80s. Graeme believes it’s “at the community level is where you have the best chance to drive changes and create models”.

Graeme and the teams at SCEG and SANE (Surfers Appreciating the Natural Environment) who have fought for and protected Spring Creek for decades remain positive, as long as they have the support of the people, and companies such as Patagonia and Rip Curl. According to Chris Leibhardt the support received from Patagonia couldn’t be better, and it’s through these kinds of sponsorships that projects like this are able to materialise and remain effective.

Stewie Guthrie is one of these people. Having moved to Spring Creek in 1997 for a change of pace, Stewie was immediately enamoured with the local environment. In fact, Stewie met Graeme as Stewie was replanting his property with natives bought from Graeme’s nursery. To see them as separate now seems impossible. But for Stewie it started with an urge to escape development and a need for his kids “to be able to breathe clean air”.

For Stewie, the balance between economic stability and environmental protection is already happening. Running Ashmore Arts, a group of artist studios, provides him with an income that only uses 10% of his acreage. “Most art based … I don’t like using the word communities … art based collections or businesses, are generally government funded in some form, and there’s only, I think, around two or three [that are] privately held, privately owned, and profitable”.

This enables Stewie, Graeme and the SCEG volunteers to replant the rest, which they do monthly. It’s a viable system that values nature and gives back to the community in more ways than one, allowing the artists to take inspiration from the land that is older than all of us while also promising it a future that can be enjoyed by the wider community.

Describing his parcel of land at Ashmore Arts, Stewie has “… set up this block so that it’s ‘devalued’ in the eyes of a developer”, and as the 100 Year Plan goes on, it only grows in value for the community and ecology. “I don’t really expect that what I’m doing here is gonna change the world, but I do expect that if there’s 10,000 of me, it’s gonna make a difference”. If the group here at Spring Creek have shown anything, it’s that it only takes the persistence of a few to make a difference.

Graeme has noted that since they started this campaign on Spring Creek, more and more opportunities have begun to reveal themselves. A significant one of these is the plan to revegetate the Old Great Ocean Road, running between Torquay and Bellbrae, turning it into a safe bike path for families and school children to commute between Torquay, Jan Juc and Bellbrae. The long-abandoned road is already used for this purpose, but with new funding the SCEG team will give it a new burst of life so that the broader community can begin to appreciate Spring Creek.

Stewie too, has also set this in motion, inviting Commplay, a nature ed group, to use his land by the creek for after school activities. These child-led nature play programs run by Chloe Messner enable local children to immerse themselves in the environment, playing, learning and most importantly, engaging in ways they want to with the environment that makes up their broader home.

An appreciation for the natural environment starts at a young age, and this is clear as the children drive these pursuits, asking about different plants or animals they see, climbing, touching and building an understanding of the relationship between human and nature.

Projects like this are so important for the viability of the 100 Year Plan, it needs people across generations who are both inspired by and enamoured with Spring Creek. With the way things are going, you can’t help but feel the project is in good hands.

While the ultimate decision on Spring Creeks fate will still be in limbo until next year, Graeme and the team at SCEG are entirely hopeful. “The developers typically come in and bulldoze their way through with all their money and power and legal apparatus, and I firmly believe that the community [has been] played such a good hand … we’ve actually got the aces … [the developers] are looking down the barrel at losing and that’s something to be excited about”.

© 18 September 2022 Lewis Cook, Aleks Stapmanns & Marlow

We acknowledge the Wadawurrung people; the Traditional Custodians of the Kuluin Nation; the area this article was created on. We acknowledge their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

Sovereignty has never been ceded. The land we live and work on always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

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