Mawson MP Leon Bignell has called a public meeting to try to protect agricultural land in the southern vales from over development.

Mr Bignell says the state government is considering rezoning land to allow gutter-to-gutter housing on agricultural land in McLaren Vale, McLaren Flat and Willunga. 

In a Facebook post he says the community-devised McLaren Vale Character Preservation Legislation introduced by the previous Labor government a decade ago is under threat.

“The Liberals, who are always eager to look after their developer mates more than the people of our area, voted against this legislation when we introduced it into parliament in 2011. 

“Now, for the second time since they came to office in 2018, the Liberals are having another go at changing the rules. 

“They are sneakily using a review of the Environment and Food Production Areas to ‘investigate the merits of amending the Character Preservation Districts for eight previously identified anomalies received via public submissions in context to Greater Adelaide’s growth’.”

Mr Bignell says the ‘anomalies’ include two massive parcels of parcels of rich agricultural land. 

“The ‘public submissions’ weren’t from concerned members of the public, they were from lawyers representing developers wanting to build on the agricultural land.”

He has called a meeting for Wednesday 7 July at 6pm at Tatachilla Lutheran College Gym. RSVP is essential via email [email protected] or by phoning 8556 5722.

Mr Bignell says there were 500 people at the last meeting on this issue in October 2018 and 348 people at the anti-PFAS meeting last year.

He has called on people to turn up and show their support for their local area.

“The food, wine and tourism sector is worth $850m a year to the McLaren Vale wine region. Hundreds of businesses, employing thousands of people will be put at jeopardy if the Liberals are allowed to keep pushing for developers to win out over the farmers, winemakers and tourism operators.”