According to the council agenda, Freedom Foods’ southernmost building is non-compliant with the Building Code of Australia.
Freedoms Foods would need to provide an 18m-wide open space around the perimeter of the building for fire-fighting purposes. In order to do so, the company requested council sell the adjacent land.
“The proposed sale would allow Freedom Foods to provide sufficient clearance andaccess for fire-fighting activities in compliance with the BCA and improve its operations,as well as enabling the procurement of basin works to rectify the loss of capacity of thebasin,” council staff noted.
Furthermore, the land sale would allow Freedom Foods to change the southernmost building from warehousing to manufacturing, which would create an opportunity to install more milk processing lines.
Councillor Bruce Giovanetti said it was a "pretty straightforward" sale for one of Shepparton's largest industrial companies hoping to expand.
“If they do that (expand) they then require an exit route out of their property. To do that, they would need to purchase a section of land from council,” he said.
“What we're doing by moving this motion is approving that we'll sell that section of land to Freedom Foods to enable them to meet the necessary requirements of their expansion.”
The agenda said Freedom Foods would be required to pay the cost of basin expansion works, to offset council's loss of the basin capacity.
Works are predicted to cost Freedom Foods about $500 000.
Council will open a public submission period.
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