It's Cape rape by Silverstone's star CCC complainant

More about Bill Mitchell - Silverstone's CCC complainant and Labor MLC Adele Farina's good mate

Bill Mitchell the environmentalist, ageing surfie, Corruption and Crime Commission 'complainant' and ABC 4 Corners 'star' informant had his own exposé by Sunday Times writer Janet Wainwright a while back.

This is what seasoned hack Janet Wainwright said about Bill Mitchell and his partner:

"Developers who encroached into the Leeuwin Naturaliste National Park and damaged vegetation have been given the go-ahead to build four houses.

This is despite Conservation and Land Management (CALM) condemning the siting of the houses as 'most unsuitable'.

The Gracetown Progress Association, Cape to Cape Alliance and Leeuwin Conservation Group are irate that despite the developers putting in earthworks without council permission and damaging the park, they have been allowed to proceed.

Bill Mitchell admitted that sand pads up to 10m high had been put on the ridge without building permission and there had been some damage to adjoining park vegetation by the contractor.

'We had planning permission. I did not realise building permission was needed. It was a mistake.' he said. [To which the Desert Rat would respond: "What dissembling bullshit - a seasoned developer not knowing the difference?!"]

Mr Mitchell is building the houses in Juniper Road for his family and his partner because of the potential loss of ocean views from Mr Mitchell's property at nearby Smiths Beach.

He bought 104ha adjoining the Leeuwin Naturaliste National Park for $1.2 million in 1994 after getting council assurance that he could site the houses on the ridge.

[The Desert Rat may take readers on a virtual tour of this gross grandiose mansion - at a later date. The 490 square metre house took around two years of construction worth more than $2 million. Its render is a special feature, inappropriately described as (feral) camel-coloured but looks more like baby-shit yellow to the Desert Rat - who sees camels and dodges camel dung daily.]

While admitting damaging the vegetation was a breach of the National Park regulations, he said the damage was minor and was being rehabilitated.

'An area of National Park was damaged - not cleared - by a rubber tyred scraper,' Mitchell said.

CALM's Regional Manager for Bunbury, Bob Chandler, said CALM stood by its original advice that the building sites were the worst possible on the block for the protection of landscape values on the ridge, but but the council had planning powers.

In a detailed submission on December 14 1998 following the unauthorised (10m high) sand pads, Mr Chandler drew attention to the Cape to Cape Walk within the National Park, which is 500 metres from one (10m high) sand pad.

The spokesperson for the the Cape to Cape Alliance and the Leeuwin Conservation Group, Bill Meiklejohn, said that council's own planning policy was that 'no development should be permitted that would affect the landscape'.

As late as February the council's planning committee recommended the sand pads should be removed and plans rejected. [Now there's a job for the CCC which they won't want to know about.]

Gracetown Progress Association Wayne Baddock said the council had not paid enough attention to the area.

'There should never have been approval for buildings directly adjoining CALM land on a sensitive area of the ridge.'

Council chief executive Max Eastcott said in hindsight the zoning was inappropriate and there should have been some landscape protection."

The Desert Rat wonders just how much homework Mike Silverstone did before he rushed into the Smiths Beach inquiry fiasco. It was too good to be true Mike! Don't ever let the facts or background get in the way for a sensational public "investigation" or "story" - to lift the profile of the CCC.

Let's hope that some day, CCC chief clown Mike Silverstone has to come out of hiding and publicly explain his incompetence.