Farming families revved up over threat of track

Andrew Mathieson
A BARRABOOL family fears six generations of farming the land will be lost if dirt-bike riders win their bid to save neighbouring McAdam Park.
The riders are fighting to raise $3.2 million to buy the site off its owners.
Geelong’s council diverted $660,000 from a proposed Avalon motocross track to Barrabool last week but the riders need a further $1 million before Monday’s deadline to buy the land.
Barwon Recreational Motor-cycling Council intends to expand McAdam Park to cater for Geelong Motocross Club to join other riders on the track.
Barrabool’s George family has since the 1880s owned more than 600 hectares next door to farm cattle, horses and crops.
Three of the six generations still live on the property, with patriarch John George remembering the motorcycling track back in 1963 when it was little more than eight hectares.
The family says the new plans for a 120-hectare facility were “ambitious” and unfair.
Mr George said his family also had “an issue” with the riders next door but “could get along with them okay”.
“But when you hear they’re going to buy the entire 300 acres and to make (the track) three times bigger and therefore three times noisier, that’s when enough is enough.
“It’s not saving McAdam Park, it’s developing McAdam Park.”
The track is about a kilometre from the George family’s property.
However, Mr George said the expanded facility could come within 50 metres of the family’s front gate and restrict access to their quarterhorse stud.
“We can’t use that paddock to follow our mares down,” he said.
“We will be forced to drive down to see them two to three times a day, sometimes even in the middle of the night.”
Mr George said increased motorcycling in the past decade had been hazardous to farming.
“There was so much topsoil running off down one of our gullies that it used to fill up one of dams every year and make it unusable,” he said.
“That dam fed three paddocks, so we’ve had to invest quite a lot of money since.”
Mr George said planning guidelines flagged the Barrabool Hills as an erosion “hot spot”.
Farmers have also expressed concerns about traffic, dust and noise.