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title: Gheringhap Structure Plan council: golden-plains state: vic category: growth-area classification: MAJOR status: unknown last_compiled: 2026-05-30 source_docs:

  • Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf
  • Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf

Gheringhap Structure Plan

The Gheringhap Structure Plan functions less like a residential growth plan and more like an employment-area control framework: it channels commercial and industrial activity into the Gheringhap Employment Area while protecting nearby dwelling clusters, the Moorabool River environs, open grasslands and rural character (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.5; Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55). The available corpus does not include the original December 2012 Gheringhap Structure Plan, so this page analyses the statutory policy expression of that plan rather than the full technical basis, land budget, staging program, infrastructure schedule or design framework (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55; Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.127).

Background

Gheringhap is identified in the Golden Plains Planning Scheme as being approximately 15 kilometres north-west of Geelong and 6 kilometres south-east of Bannockburn (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.5). Its strategic role is tied to major infrastructure access: the planning scheme identifies proximity to the Port of Geelong, Geelong Ring Road, Midland Highway, Hamilton Highway, rail infrastructure, a high-pressure gas pipeline, a high-voltage electricity transmission line and water pipelines (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.5; Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55). In simple terms, Gheringhap is being treated like a workshop near the main road, power, water and freight lines, not like a new suburb waiting to spread outward (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55).

The Structure Plan itself is listed as the Gheringhap Structure Plan, prepared by Parsons Brinckerhoff in December 2012, and is identified as a background document connected to Clauses 02 and 11 through Amendment C62 (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.127). The proposed C102gpla ordinance continues to use that structure plan as the relevant policy document for the Gheringhap local policy (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55).

Analysis

Strategic Role: Employment Area, Not Residential Growth Front

The statutory policy mechanism is clear: commercial and industrial use and development are directed to the area specified on the Gheringhap Framework Plan (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55). Residential development inside the Gheringhap Employment Area is discouraged unless it is directly associated with, and required to support, a significant commercial, industrial or agricultural activity (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55). The effect is to prevent the employment area from being diluted by conventional housing demand, because sensitive residential uses would make later industrial and commercial operations harder to site, buffer and operate (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55).

This matters because the wider settlement policy already says no significant new residential land is needed across the Shire except in Bannockburn, where rezoning remains required to accommodate forecast growth (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.3). Gheringhap therefore sits outside the main residential growth logic of the municipality: Smythesdale and Bannockburn are the primary residential directions, while Gheringhap is framed around employment land and infrastructure access (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.3; Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.5).

The Planning Scheme Review reinforces this interpretation indirectly through permit activity: Gheringhap accounted for 13 planning permit applications, or 1 per cent of applications, over the four-year review period, compared with 381 applications, or 21 per cent, in Bannockburn and 193 applications, or 11 per cent, in Teesdale (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.17). That permit profile is consistent with Gheringhap being a strategic employment-location question rather than an active township-expansion front in the available documents (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.17; Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55).

Infrastructure Logic and Access Dependencies

The policy supports commercial and industrial development that uses Gheringhap’s proximity to state highways, railways, high-pressure gas, high-voltage electricity and water pipelines (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55). The underlying planning mechanism is a co-location mechanism: uses that rely on freight movement, energy, water or separation from sensitive uses are steered toward a place where those attributes already exist, instead of being scattered through smaller townships or rural land (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.37; Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55).

Access is also treated as a design and sequencing issue, not just a location advantage. The local Gheringhap policy supports development that provides safe vehicle movement, well-presented car parking and improved access in the employment area, including road-system reconfiguration (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55). That means the Structure Plan area is not simply a mapped employment precinct; it requires subdivision and development layouts to solve internal circulation, access management and interface presentation before industrial or commercial intensification can work properly (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55).

At the wider Shire level, transport policy says Golden Plains benefits from export and transport facilities, reduced travel times from the Geelong Ring Road and Western Highway upgrades, existing rail freight connections to Melbourne and future regional road and rail improvements (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.12). The implication for Gheringhap is that local employment-area planning depends on regional freight and access systems that sit beyond the township itself, including Geelong, Ballarat and Melbourne connections (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.12; Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55).

Interface Management: Industry Beside Rural Living Patterns

Gheringhap’s main planning tension is between employment-area activity and the settlement’s existing rural-residential pattern. The planning scheme describes Gheringhap as valued for open grasslands, the Moorabool River and rural character made up of agricultural land interspersed by dwelling clusters that coexist with surrounding agricultural activity (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.5). The local policy then requires commercial and industrial development to be located and designed to protect existing dwelling-cluster amenity (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.5; Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55).

The most explicit interface is McCurdy Road, where the local policy supports sensitive commercial or industrial development on land that abuts existing residential development (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55). This creates a graded edge rather than a hard industrial-residential collision: heavier or more disruptive activities should not be placed directly against existing dwellings unless amenity impacts can be managed through use selection, setbacks, landscaping and site design (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55).

Setbacks are a second mechanism. The policy requires development to be set back from the Midland Highway and Fyansford-Gheringhap Road, and it requires landscaped interfaces and setbacks from both existing residential development and road frontages (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55). In everyday terms, the plan is trying to put a planted breathing space between noisy or bulky activity and the homes or roads people already experience (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55).

Landscape, River and Rural Character Constraints

Gheringhap is not treated as an unconstrained industrial estate. The planning scheme identifies flat open plains as a defining feature of Gheringhap and the wider Golden Plains south-east region (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.5). It also seeks to protect the Moorabool River environs, open grasslands and existing rural character (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.5).

The south-east area policy adds a broader landscape control: it seeks to protect open rural landscape values in the corridor between towns outside the Gheringhap Precinct, reinforce the non-urban break between Batesford and Bannockburn, maintain highway landscape buffers except around the Gheringhap Precinct and avoid new vehicle access points along the Midland and Hamilton Highways (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.3; Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.37). The exception for the Gheringhap Precinct is important: it signals that employment development is contemplated there, but not as a licence for general urbanisation of the whole south-east corridor (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.37).

The available documents do not quantify land-take for landscape buffers, setbacks, drainage, roads or environmental protection within the Structure Plan area (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55). Without the 2012 Structure Plan text and maps in extractable form, it is not possible to calculate net developable employment land, road-reservation requirements, buffer-area loss or staging impacts (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.127).

Development Contributions and Design Controls

The Planning Scheme Review shows that Clause 74.02 previously identified two Gheringhap-specific further strategic work items: prepare a development contributions plan for infrastructure in the Gheringhap precinct and develop design guidelines for the Gheringhap Structure Plan Area (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.129). Appendix Three records that the Gheringhap development contributions plan had not been completed or commenced, but Council marked it as no longer required because infrastructure contributions would be subject to a section 173 agreement and covered by the Shire-wide development contributions plan (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.378). Appendix Three also records that Gheringhap design guidelines had not been completed or commenced, but Council marked them as no longer required because a Design and Development Overlay and possible Development Plan Overlay would be used with the Gheringhap rezoning and subdivision (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.378).

The practical effect is that Gheringhap has shifted from a precinct-specific contributions-and-guidelines model toward a more transaction-specific statutory model: infrastructure is expected to be handled through agreements and the Shire-wide DCP, while built form and site layout are expected to be handled through overlay controls at rezoning and subdivision stage (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.378). That is administratively flexible, but the available documents do not provide levy rates, infrastructure-item lists, trigger points, cost apportionment, road-upgrade scopes or design standards for the employment area (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.378).

Policy Currency and Amendment C102gpla

The Planning Scheme Review identified that Amendment C90 had inserted expiry dates into Clause 02.04 framework plans and local policies including Clause 11.03-6L-02 Gheringhap (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.21). The review found that updating framework plans was not Council’s highest priority and recommended removing the expiry dates, or extending them by ten years if DELWP was not comfortable with removal (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.21). The proposed C102gpla ordinance still shows the Gheringhap local policy with an expiry six years from the gazettal of Amendment C90gpla (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55).

This creates a policy-currency issue rather than a land-use-intent issue. The Planning Scheme Review did not identify the Gheringhap Framework Plan content as defective; it identified the expiry-date approach as an inefficient way to set Council’s strategic planning work program (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.21). For the Structure Plan area, the consequence is that statutory reliance on an older 2012 framework remains acceptable in the available documents, but the corpus does not show whether the 2012 plan has been refreshed against current freight, energy, water, drainage, biodiversity, cultural heritage or economic-land-demand evidence (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.21; Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.127).

Current Status

The available documents establish that the Gheringhap Structure Plan is a December 2012 Parsons Brinckerhoff background document associated with Clauses 02 and 11, and that proposed Amendment C102gpla carries forward a local Gheringhap policy based on the Gheringhap Framework Plan (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.127; Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55). The documents do not establish whether the original Structure Plan has been updated, whether a Gheringhap rezoning has proceeded, whether a section 173 agreement has been executed, or whether any Design and Development Overlay or Development Plan Overlay has been applied to the relevant land (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.378).

Dependencies

  • Blocks: Conventional residential expansion within the Gheringhap Employment Area, because residential development is avoided unless directly associated with a significant commercial, industrial or agricultural activity (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55).
  • Blocks: Ad hoc business development outside the intended employment area, because commercial and industrial use is directed to the area specified on the Gheringhap Framework Plan (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55).
  • Blocked by: Site-specific infrastructure funding and statutory control mechanisms, because the former Gheringhap DCP and design-guideline work items were marked as not required in favour of section 173 agreements, the Shire-wide DCP, a Design and Development Overlay and possible Development Plan Overlay (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.378).
  • Blocked by: Access and movement design, because the local policy requires safe vehicle movement, car parking presentation, improved access and possible road-system reconfiguration in the employment area (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55).
  • Informed by: Gheringhap Structure Plan, Parsons Brinckerhoff, December 2012, listed as a policy/background document for Clauses 02 and 11 (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.127; Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55).
  • Implements: The south-east settlement policy direction to support business and service uses requiring substantial separation distances between the Midland and Hamilton Highways, while maintaining landscape buffers and avoiding new highway access points except around the Gheringhap Precinct (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.37).
  • Conflicts with: Sensitive residential amenity if industrial or commercial development is poorly located next to dwelling clusters, especially along McCurdy Road (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55).

Gheringhap’s planning role is regional because the policy relies on infrastructure that connects beyond Golden Plains, including the Port of Geelong, Geelong Ring Road, Midland Highway, Hamilton Highway and rail links between Geelong, Ballarat and the rest of Victoria (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.5; Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.12). Golden Plains Shire is also split between two regional planning areas, with the south of the municipality in the G21 Region and the north in the Central Highlands Region (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.1). Gheringhap is therefore tied to the Geelong-facing economic and freight system more than to the Shire’s northern settlement network (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.1; Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.5).

Gaps in This Analysis

The original Gheringhap Structure Plan prepared by Parsons Brinckerhoff in December 2012 is referenced but not provided as an extracted source document in this compile manifest (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.127; Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55). This is the critical analytical gap, because the available documents do not provide gross precinct area, net developable employment land, lot layout, infrastructure items, costings, staging, land ownership, servicing constraints, traffic modelling, drainage design, cultural heritage assessment, biodiversity constraints or adopted design guidance (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.378).

A second gap is the absence of any Shire-wide development contributions plan, section 173 agreement template or Gheringhap-specific infrastructure schedule in the available corpus (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.378). Because of that gap, this page cannot quantify infrastructure contribution rates, responsible delivery parties, works triggers or cost apportionment between landowners and public authorities (Source: Att 7.6.1 - Golden-Plains-Planning-Scheme-Review-2022_FINAL combined_3.pdf, p.378).

A third gap is the absence of the final Amendment C102gpla lifecycle material, including authorisation, exhibition, submissions, panel report, adoption, approval or gazettal documents (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.1). The available ordinance is marked Proposed C102gpla, so the current statutory status of the Gheringhap policy should be verified against the live Golden Plains Planning Scheme before relying on it for statutory decision-making (Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.1; Source: Att 7.6.5 - Golden Plains C102gpla Ordinance Combined_1.pdf, p.55).

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