Asbestos business relief grants jeopardised by MIC injunction
Published on 22 December 2022
Melbourne Innovation Centre has launched a VCAT injunction just two days after Council passed a $20,000 grant for affected businesses.
Darebin City Council has expressed its extreme disappointment at the decision by the Melbourne Innovation Centre (MIC) to launch a VCAT injunction just two days after Council passed much-needed $20,000 Small Business Crisis Grant for affected businesses at the MIC Alphington site.
Darebin City Council CEO Peter Smith said the Council is vigorously opposed to any injunction that put the health and safety of the public and small business at risk.
“We are concerned any premature return of the businesses to the two buildings impacted by asbestos dust will be putting the health and safety of business employees, customers, visitors and others at risk. As the landlord, Council’s priority is to ensure the buildings are safe for the MIC licensed businesses to use.”
“We are also disappointed by this unnecessary diversion of resources that could be spent helping affected businesses get back to work as fast as possible,” said Mr Smith.
“At Monday night’s council meeting, a $20,000 Small Business Crisis Grant was passed and established for MIC to distribute to those affected tenants prior to Christmas Eve to ensure those affected small businesses had much needed financial security at this time.
“It is disappointing that MIC chose to not accept this funding and has instead taken this action, which will simply divert resources from ongoing works and progress to support impacted businesses.
“We are unsure now if these businesses will receive these much-needed grants before the Christmas Eve deadline.”
Council has spent more than $100,000 to date on retrieving and cleaning priority items for the impacted businesses to help them restart their business and other activity to urgently address the environmental safety concerns at the site.
Mr Smith said the MIC claims to have commissioned its own independent report which detailed a desktop review without site attendance and review of limited data.
“We have only received the report that has been cited as the basis for the injunction in the past two days. No site access to the impacted area of the site was requested, nor were we involved in the report’s development in any way.”
“In the interests of transparency, we would urge the MIC to make this report publicly available, as Council has done with its authoritative expert reports that are available on the Council website.”
Mr Smith said Council had been working closely with the MIC to establish a timeline to complete all environmental monitoring, testing, and remediation works required across the site, including dust, air, and soil testing, which was due to continue into next year to ensure the safety of the site for community and business use.
A process to support all parties, including discussion of the future use of the site, a timetable for a return of tenants; where this is possible, and how Council and MIC can support tenants in finding alternative locations has also been put at risk as a result of this action by MIC.
“We have continued to attempt to keep MIC updated on the status of investigations and our commitment to remediate the site and help MIC support its tenants.”