By Christine de Kock
THEPort of Melbourne Corporation will not come down heavy on boat owners who don’t leave the Footscray wharf by the end of this week.
The reassurance came directly from the Port of Melbourne Corporation’s (PoMC) chief executive officer Stephen Bradford.
Boat owners last month were given a letter of eviction, which offered up to $6000 in compensation for relocation.
They were expected to get out within 14 days of receiving the letter.
However, Mr Bradford said the letters were not sent by registered mail and some boat owners had not received them.
He said this would result in the offer being extended to those individuals.
“We are discussing it individually with boat owners and do not expect it to be a dramatic week,” he said.
Despite the pending eviction, boat owner Grenville Silvester planned to stay at the Footscray wharf.
“A lot of the boat owners have left. We’ve ended up with about 12 of the 35 who were here,” he said.
“I don’t know whether they will bring a whole heap of guards and throw us off the wharf – but we will stay.”
Mr Silvester said he continued to write to Premier Steve Bracks to stop the eviction.
“I’m just being ignored,” he said. “I just want some answers. I want to sit with the port, Parks Victoria and the council and talk about this.”
Mr Silvester said channels of communication had closed between himself and the PoMC.
“They are not talking to me anymore,” he said.
“I have to go through their legal firm Minter Ellison – they’re at the big end of town.”
Mr Silvester said he had approached solicitors to represent him against Minter Ellison but had been turned away.
“They say: It’s Minter Ellison? You give me your boat and I’ll go talk to them.”
Paul Marlow, a former campaigner against the eviction from Footscray wharf , said he had accepted the PoMC’s compensation offer of $6000 and had relocated his boat in Williamstown.
“For me the fight is too big,” he said.
“Now Grenville has effectively to take on the Bracks Government by himself,” Mr Marlow said.
He added that he believed the PoMC’s process of handling the evictions was undemocratic.
“I just don’t like the fact that there was no consultation process,” Mr Marlow said.
“Their vision doesn’t fit with the community’s vision, and having no way to discuss this makes me very angry.
“It seems to me to be antidemocratic not to discuss this.”
