A MUNRUBEN couple who staged a roadside protest against the proposed North Maclean industrial estate last week fear the development will ruin their lifestyle and bring more crime to the area.
Peter and Tanya Hodges set up the protest beside Mount Lindesay Highway to raise awareness about their fight against the development.
The community submission deadline for the development was recently extended until December.
Developers have earmarked the 117 hectare site as a mixed-use industrial precinct they say will create hundreds of jobs, but nearby residents say the bushland area is environmentally sensitive and home to koalas and several endangered species.
The Hodges live on Janelle Court at Munruben, nearby the proposed development on the corner of Crowson Lane and Mt Lindesay Highway.
Tanya Hodges said her husband Peter had been putting much of his energy into fighting the development after he was seriously injured in a motorbike accident in France in 2014.
Mr Hodges suffered a serious brain injury that restricts his movement and now unable to work, the 55-year-old is putting all of his energy into protecting the lifestyle he has enjoyed since 1982.
Tanya Hodges said the protest was designed to encourage other people to join their fight.
“We’ve found that people either don’t know about it or they are resigned to it, they think it’s going to happen anyway,” she said.
“When people find out about it they are against it, that’s why we need to get it out there.”
Ms Hodges said her and many of her neighbors fear their quiet lifestyles will be ruined forever, and worry about increased crime in the area.
“We moved out here for peace and quiet, a place to retire, to get away from suburbia and traffic and industry, but now suburbia is just moving to us,” she said.
“Plus there’s enough hoons in the area already, so to put an industrial estate in is just going to make it 100 times worse.”
Ms Hodges encouraged people to write letters to councillors, the premier’s office and their local MPs to have their say.
Previous environmental surveys of the site found development would affect habitat critical to the survival of koalas, the swift parrot and the grey-headed flying fox.
