Community
28 January, 2026
Residents say ‘no’ to proposed wind farm
A NEW proposed wind farm in Elingamite North is now open for community feedback after lodging notice of an application for a planning permit.
The wind farm, titled Mumblin Wind Farm, will be located on a combined area of approximately 184 hectares of land around 10 kilometres south west of Cobden.
It will consist of up to eight wind turbines with a minimum rotor swept height of 64 metres above ground level and maximum rotor swept height of 252 metres above ground level.
RE Future, the developer of the wind farm, chose the site due to its close proximity to the electricity grid, the fact it receives undisturbed strong, consistent wind speeds, there will be minimal effects on flora and fauna, there are large setbacks to houses and it offers easy access for construction.
Residents of Elingamite North and surrounds have taken a stand against the proposed wind farm, citing noise, impacts on local fauna and impacts on farming and agriculture as some of the reasons they oppose the development.
“The noise factor is a main issue – testing hasn’t been done on towers this high, they’ve got computer models of it but no realistic models,” resident Dennis Rosolin said.
“The noise testing they’ve done at the moment is they’re allowed to go five decibels above the existing noise level.
“During the day there’s a lot of noise such as birds, cars, motorbikes and machinery which is for example 35 decibels, they’re allowed to go to 40 decibels.
“But at eight o’clock at night, when the birds have died down, the wind’s died down, the machinery is not active, it could be 18 decibels, and they’re still allowed to pump out 40 decibels.”
Mr Rosolin’s wife, Robyn Rosolin, said the location of the wind farm would impact the flight path of local bird and bat life.
“They’ve put it in a position that is surrounded by significant wetlands, such as Lake Elingamite, Lake Cobrico, the Ecklin swamp and Lake Mumblin,” she said.
“It’s a body that attracts migrating birds and local bird life – they’re saying they’re putting the wind farm in to help the environment to produce green energy yet they’re prepared to sacrifice bird and bat life.”
Mrs Rosolin added there would be impacts to farming as they had been informed any construction within a one-kilometre radius of a wind turbine would require approval from the wind farm developer.
“It limits their ability to build infrastructure for workers accommodation and some other things,” she said.
“It doesn’t say they can’t, but you have to go through the wind farm to get approval.
“There are a couple of land holdings where that exclusion zone covers the whole land holding, which means that whole land holding is now pasture – there’s no scope ever to be able to build accommodation on there without their approval.”
Impacted resident Darren Vickers said a part of his property was in one of the exclusion zones, which he was worried would prevent him from accessing water when needed.
“My stock water bores are within probably about 350 metres of the closest turbine so if an exclusion zone is put around that I can’t get to my bores to fix them,” he said,
“Plus the security of when they put the actual fittings in – are they going to upset my bores?
“They’re not able to give me any assurances and it’s too late if I run out of water.
“I can run out of water in a day so policies need to be in place if this goes ahead, before anything starts, instead of them working it out a week after I’ve got no water.”
Another impact on farming would be aerial application, which Dixie resident Rachael Moloney said would become complex due to allegedly needing the turbines to be turned off for any aerial spreading.
“The governing body – the Aerial Agricultural Applications Australia – they actually have a policy statement that is recommending that going forward that for wind farms, that any spreading activities that are piloted, so for fixed wing or helicopter applications, that the turbines are actually turned off,” she said.
“When you ask RE Future, they say they can turn the turbines off at the request of the pilots.
“I then asked how they turned them off and they proposed a week-long procedure with four rounds of communication between the aerial operator and the wind farm operator – not with the farmer.
“You have to book in a week in advance and that doesn’t work – the weather doesn’t work like that and fertiliser applications are time critical applications and if they’re not met at those times, that impacts our pasture production and that impacts our business.”
Mrs Rosolin said it was only a matter of time before more turbines spread further across the area.
“They say ‘it’s only eight’ but it’s a huge eight in size and I think once they get their foot in the door here it means that no area will be safe and there’s nothing to stop them getting farmers that agree to have them to then continue through to Terang and link up with others,” she said.
“It’s the big unknown and what it opens itself up to.
“If people say ‘they don’t affect me’ I can tell you down the track it could very well be a huge effect on a lot of people.”
Mrs Moloney acknowledged there was a place for renewables in Victoria’s energy grid, but felt this location was poorly picked and not suitable for the project.
“I’m not opposed to renewable energy – I just think it needs to be in the right spot,” she said.
“I think what’s happening here is we’ve got a smaller farming land holding community so we’re not able to get decent setbacks from properties or property boundaries.
“I think there’s land holdings that are typically further north and in other parts of Australia and you can get decent setbacks from property boundaries and from homes.
“There’s a proposal up near Ararat and they’ve got the same height turbines and they’ve reduced the number of turbines from 160 to 120 so they’ve been able to give a two-kilometre set back from residential boundaries.
“We haven’t got that there, we’ve got over 40 residents, of which approximately 10 of them are stakeholder or host farms, but there’s about 30 residents and houses that are less than two kilometres from just eight turbines.”
As Western District Newspapers reported last year, Corangamite Shire councillors have publicly spoken out against Mumblin Wind Farm.
Mayor councillor Kate Makin encouraged anyone with an objection to submit their objection before the deadline of February 2.
“As with all renewable energy facilities it is being assessed by the Minister,” she said.
“While council has no decision-making power at all in this application, we want to hear what community members and affected parties have to say.
“I encourage people who are making their own submissions direct to the Department of Transport and Planning to also send a copy to us as well.”
Cr Makin said council would continue to advocate for the people of Corangamite Shire.
“We will continue to advocate for a better deal for locals, for the benefits from these large international and government investments into renewable energy production, storage and distribution project to come to the communities that are directly impacted and disrupted by the projects,” she said.
“We maintain that not enough is being done to protect highly productive agricultural land – in particular dairy country – from conflicting land-uses.
“Agriculture is Corangamite’s largest output generating sector, supporting an annual output of $1.299 billion – about seven per cent of Victoria’s total output – and employing a third of the shire’s workforce.
“With projects that sit outside the new Renewable Energy Zones, the bar must be set much, much higher than we have seen in recent decisions.”
Any person who may be affected by the granting of the permit may object or make other submissions to the responsible authority by email to development.assessment@transport.vic.gov.au.
An objection must be made to the responsible authority in writing, include the reason for the objection and state how the objector would be affected.
RE Future was contacted for comment but did not respond prior to publication.
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