Council & Business
30 December, 2025
No decision on new broiler farm
A controversial broiler farm application has been left in limbo, after more than a year of waiting, when Central Goldfields Shire Council did not make a decision.
Central Goldfields Shire Council ended the year by allowing two planning applications to lapse, and deferred another, in the December council meeting.
Among them was a broiler farm application for 3280 Pyrenees Highway, Carisbrook, which primarily proposed the construction of six broiler sheds which would house a maximum of 400,000 birds.
While the applicant was the land owners, Ian and Robert Hurse, Pavilion Farms will be the company who runs the broiler farm.
Since public notice began in May last year council have received 56 objections and two neutral submissions from the community.
Despite community concern, however, councillors did not move a motion at the meeting, allowing the item to lapse.
According to council, lapsed items are generally considered at a later date.
However, time is against council, and they’ve been too late before.
The applicants had two broiler farm applications go to public notice at the same time last year.
One was the Pyrenees Highway application, which is ongoing, and the other was for 705 Baringhup Road, Carisbrook.
The latter was taken to VCAT by the applicants in April, after almost a year of waiting, because Central Goldfields Shire Council were yet to make a decision on the permit.
While council unanimously refused the chicken “factory” a month later, the decision was out of their hands, with VCAT later approving the application.
Councillor Gerard Murphy said “enough is enough” when it comes to broiler farms on the Moolort Plains.
“This is rather emotional for us, I don’t know if emotion should get into it, but we are here for our community,” Cr Murphy said.
While some objector concerns became conditions on the permit, many couldn’t be fully considered under the relevant planning law or the Victorian Code for Broiler Farms.
The limits of these laws were criticised by objectors but was outside the responsibility of the tribunal.
According to VCAT’s decision, the applicant asked council to put the Pyrenees Highway application ‘on hold’ partly due to objections from Castlemaine-Maryborough Rail Trail Inc.
The organisation hopes to turn the disused rail corridor between Maryborough and Castlemaine into a tourist attraction for cyclists and pedestrians.
However, the proposed broiler farm is adjacent to the trail with a 30 x 50 metre “mortality composting pad” within 100 metres of the corridor.
Pavilion Farms owner Michael Vukadinovic previously told The Maryborough District Advertiser he didn’t want to “stand in the way” of a community project.
“If they’re not going ahead, I’ll build the farm, if they are going ahead I’ll move the farm,” he said.
The rail trail is now in the preconstruction phase, the second of three stages, and has secured over $400,000 in funding.
While it’s unclear what this means for the application’s future, if it were to go to VCAT, the rail trail may not be considered.
In VCAT’s decision they said, because construction of the rail trail was not imminent, they were unable to give weight to any adverse impact on the rail trail as a tourism project.
“The rail trail has not advanced to the stage that it is a recognised project or feature under the planning scheme,” the decision read.
Carisbrook landholder and long-time environmental advocate Alison Teese OAM previously told The Maryborough District Advertiser that existing planning law favours corporate interests rather than the local experience of farmers.
“Even if 10 percent of the Central Goldfields Shire wrote objections to it, it could still get through VCAT with the existing planning law,” she said.
“All the good common sense in the world can’t stop these permits.”