Company owning first prison site wins export award
Sharon Webb
The Westbury business whose land was chosen as the first site for a northern prison has won the international health category of the 2021 Tasmanian Export Awards.
Selborne Biological Services is located on Glen Avon Farms at 35 Birralee Road, the first site chosen by the State Government for its Northern Regional Prison.
In 2020 the proposed site for the prison was changed to the Brushy Creek Reserve further down Birralee Road, although a recent government decision to close Ashley Detention Centre on the outskirts of Deloraine may make that a third proposed prison site.
SBS exports animal blood products, including plasma, all over the world to supply the agricultural sector. The company also has facilities on the historic Mountford property at Pateena Rd, Longford.
The company’s website describes it as ‘a leading supplier of specialised products of animal origin for the biotech, pharmaceutical, veterinary and diagnostics industries.’
SBS began in the 1970s in Selborne, Hampshire in the UK, the location from which it still supplies its European markets.
But with the advent of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (commonly known as mad cow disease) some operations were moved to Tasmania and New Zealand.
SBS now uses only Tasmania as its southern hemisphere base.
Meander Valley Council’s former general manager Martin Gill led the process of supplying the municipality’s land options to the State Government for Tasmania’s proposed northern prison.
At the time SBS director Neville Pope said he had been approached by Meander Valley Council for consent to submit an expression of interest in selling land to the State Government for the prison.
He said his company initiated nothing. Meander Valley Council had approached him for permission and submitted the EOI with no involvement from his company.
‘From that point on we [have] had nothing to do with and were not involved in the [choice of prison site] process other than some site inspections and preliminary contract negotiations, until we were advised that we were the preferred site.’
Minister for Trade Guy Barnett said this year’s Export Awards winners represent Tasmania’s leaders in overseas exports based on their levels of success and ingenuity.
‘Recognition of this success is particularly deserved, having gone through and come out of the coronavirus pandemic matching the nation’s economic figures and, in many cases, coming out on top.’
SBS will compete in the international health category of the Australian Export Awards next month.
