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March 28th, 2013 
Peter Nolan
Updated
The once small, sleepy Pilbara town of Onslow is transforming into a booming resource hub of the North West as major gas projects move in next door.
Developments including Chevron’s $29 billion Wheatstone LNG project are expected to treble the town’s population to more than 2200 during the next five years.
But while the future may look bright, Onslow is experiencing growing pains.
Rental prices are in the thousands, petrol prices have hit $2.08 a litre and some contractors are even sleeping in “boatels” off the coast for $700 a night.
Nelly Wright has lived in Onslow for 16 years and says while locals do expect to pay a bit more, the situation is getting extreme.
“Unleaded petrol has just gone through the roof,” she said.
“Normally on average over the past few months it sort of hovers between $1.78 to $1.87 roughly, but we were just absolutely horrified to see it go up to $2.08[on Tuesday 5th March].”
Geoff Herbert from the local Chamber of Commerce and Industry says the situation is becoming untenable.
“From my point of view I can totally understand where the petrol station is coming from, I think they are between a rock and a hard place,” he said.
“From what I can gather they are renting accommodation, I think accommodation is probably up around $2000 – $2500 a week now, and they have fly-in fly-out staff , I think there is about three or four staff, so whatever the wages are for that a week as well.”
Growing pains
The influx of construction work in the town may be providing funds for development, but it is also putting immense pressure on essential services.
Ms Wright says it is hitting average residents who are not linked to the mining game while Mr Herbert says local businesses are facing the same problems.
“It’s like everything in town, the rent is going up, the prices in the supermarket are going up because the same thing, they have a lot of staff, their costs are going up, so they are passing it on,” he said.
“This is the first opportunity we’ve had in God knows how long and you can’t grow your business at all, you can only use what you’ve got, because there is no accommodation.”
It is the same story for tourists visiting the town.
The landscape once dotted with grey nomads is now being replaced with work camps.
Anne Eyre from the tourist centre says visitor numbers are falling because travellers can not get accommodation or afford to pay for essentials such as food and fuel.
“It’s impacting on tourism, last year the numbers were down, this year it’s going to be worse,” she said.
“In five years time, we’re going to have some beautiful accommodation for tourists but then we’ve got to get them back here.”
Despite the pain, Mr Herbert says the community will not be able to build critical infrastructure without the project.
“Without Chevron we wouldn’t be getting the funds for an airport or money for other infrastructure,” he said.
The local shire’s Amanda O’Halloran agrees and says it is simply a case of short term pain for long term gain.
“There’s a lot of people that chose Onslow for the little fishing village that it was, for its remoteness and for having the lifestyle of being able to get a park easily and go to the beach and no-ones there, and unfortunately those days have changed,” she said.
“I think the goal posts were moving, I think people wanted better health services, people wanted flights, they wanted a swimming pool i just don’t think believe realised this had to happen to get those things, so there is an element of the community that isn’t happy with the change.”
Who’s at fault?
Many locals are blaming the State Government for the difficulties, saying it repeated the same mistakes it made when Karratha underwent rapid growth.
Mr Herbert says the government should have been on the front foot.
“At the end of the day this isn’t Chevron’s or the shire’s fault, this is the State Government’s,” he said.
“Power and water should have been sorted out before this project started and land should have been released so we wouldn’t have these massive price rises.”
“We thought they might have got behind the eight-ball a little bit on this because they have seen what has happened in Karratha and Port Hedland but it is even worse than what we thought.”
Ms O’Halloran admits government bureaucracy has held up development but says departments simply can not work as fast as resource companies.
“They waited for sanction of the project by Chevron, the difficulty with that, is that at sanction the company’s ready to go and they press the button and they’re off, people were here within weeks and unfortunately we’re not ready for that.”
The Pilbara Development Commission CEO Ken King says the hardship is not going unnoticed.
He says the PDC and State Government are working with the shire and proponents to address the issues, with service worker accommodation a possible short term fix.
“We’ve been successful in Karratha and Coral Bay in putting in service worker accommodation at an affordable price, working with the private sector to do that, we are doing the same thing with the Department of Housing in Hedland and we would hope to do the same thing in Onslow,” he said.
“There is an opportunity for some emergency support, it is time for a bit more support if we can manage it through the PDC shire and private sector working together.”
Chevron says it has consulted extensively with the community and shire to address their concerns.
It is building a 5000 bed camp to house workers and take pressure off the rental market and it is also spending $250 million on social infrastructure.
BHP Billiton and Apache Energy are jointly developing the much smaller $1.5 billion Macedon project nearby.
BHP says it is making a significant economic and social contribution to the future growth and development of the region.
But for now, those who do not own a house in the town say they might have to move on or think twice about where they retire.
“I adore Onslow, I have always used it as a home base and come backwards and forward, but you know our long term plan, we can’t afford to buy here now, Ms Wright said.
“A lot of old Onslow residents are now leaving, the town is changing very quickly, we can’t stop progress, we know that, but it is sad to see it not still be the same old town it use to be.”
Topics:
regional-development,
onslow-6710
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Source Article from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-28/residents-feel-growing-pain-as-onslow-expands/4600886
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