Representatives from the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) will attend public meetings at Narromine and Coonamble next Wednesday, to hear community concerns about land access agreements around the Inland Rail project.
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The ARTC has defended its land access agreements after NSW Farmers called on its members along the Inland Rail study corridor not to sign them.
NSW Farmers president Derek Schoen said the association was not comfortable with the standard-issue agreement and wanted to work with the ARTC to develop a more comprehensive document which balanced the needs of all parties.
The agreements give the ARTC access to carry out site studies, such as assessing trees and native wildlife and noise monitoring.
An ARTC spokesperson defended their land access agreements, saying they did “provide landowners with appropriate protections”.
The two parties are set to meet today to discuss the matter.
“We believe that the ARTC should cease further one-on-one consultation, including discussion of land access arrangements, with potentially impacted land holders until such time as a mutually-agreeable land access agreement has been developed between NSW Farmers and the ARTC,” Mr Schoen said.
“NSW Farmers continues to support Inland Rail, however we have concerns about the transparency and quality of consultation associated with the project.
“We believe that, until information about route selection is made publicly available to allow farmers to make their own decisions, the ARTC should cease contacting farmers and asking them to sign land access agreements.”
There are already 600 land access agreements in place along the 1700 kilometre-long Inland Rail alignment, ARTC’s spokesperson said, with 97 per cent of landowners so far “very happy” to sign the agreements.
“The studies are generally very low impact for landowners, unlike those undertaken by resource companies,” the spokesperson said.
“We are always clear with landowners that they have no obligation to sign an agreement and they can also terminate at any time if they change their mind for any reason.
“NSW Farmers provided feedback in relation to ARTC’s land access agreement forms as recently as Monday. We had already scheduled a meeting for 1st March to discuss further and are happy to consider their requests.”
NSW Farmers will host a community meeting at the Narromine USMC on Wednesday, February 28 from 5pm, with an ARTC representative set to attend.
There will also be a meeting at Coonamble RSL at 12 midday on Wednesday, February 28.