For a town hit by the company’s fall it was hard to watch receivers take apart a once-thriving site.

Leaders of an initiative to develop a timber industries hub there describe the mess they found. Dorset Renewable Industries chairman David Hamilton said it was trashed. To director Dale Jessup, parts resembled a bomb site.

“It was devastating,” he said.

At its peak, passersby would watch 180 workers clock off at the day’s end and walk to the car park. 

Six family members would work at the site at once, DRI’s Karen Hall said. 

“So many people’s lives depended on it.”

After sitting empty, the work of DRI has resurrected the site. 

It’s brought electricity, lighting, plumbing and a fire safety system to the area.

Sheds once had gaping holes where receivers tore out machinery for sale. They’ve been restored. 

Ten tenants have moved in since DRI bought the site using a federal government grant.

An engineering company is leasing space in one shed, and an agricultural firm will be its neighbour. 

Irrigation Tasmania has established an office on site. 

“It’s a blank canvas really waiting for some industrial action,” Mr Hamilton said.

By the year’s end, DRI expects 15 workers to operate there. Some of the jobs will have been existing ones relocating, but the businesses moving there are doing so to expand, according to Mr Jessup.

Another shed once housed a sawmill of timber firm French’s that processed 180,000 tonnes of logs annually. After DRI’s restoration program, it could do the same.

The group is naming the site the Integrated Timber Processing Hub. An ethanol plant, a peeler plant and a sawmill operating at the site will complement one another in its plan. 

DRI has turned to a growing renewables industry to help underpin the revival of the former Gunns site.

Sales of biofuels, a product introduced to Tasmania 15 years ago, have grown after wood pellets dropped in price on the back of local production.

The technology, well-established in Europe, makes use of waste from mills by transforming it into pellets and burning it in heaters.

DRI believes a pellet plant on site would create a product that could compete with gas and electricity. 

“Our vision is for every region in Tasmania to have several of these,” Mr Jessup said.

A pellet boiler to be built on site by December will demonstrate the technology to visitors.

Tasmania’s biofuels sector began with Robert Douglas’ venture Pellet Fires Tasmania, but is still fledgling in the state.

The company counts 3000 customers using pellet heaters and turns over $3m a year.

“The growth of the industry in Tasmania has been extremely slow compared to overseas,” Mr Douglas said.

“We’re only just starting to mobilise the industry in the last three years.”

When local plants began to make pellets out of sawdust, prices dropped 40 per cent and interest grew. 

Pellet Fires Tasmania takes all pellet fuel made by new producers Island Bioenergy, and another firm, Oakdale Industries.

Sawmilling companies that once paid to have their waste cleared are converting it to fuel and selling it.

However Tasmania still imports pellets from Victoria for northern customers. 

More local producers are needed to lower prices further.

DRI’s plans to host a pellet plant at Scottsdale is welcome news to Mr Douglas.

It would have no shortage of materials to work with.

Of Tasmanian forestry’s 12,000 tonnes of yearly dry waste from timber manufacturing, only one third is used for pellet fuel.

More processing plants are needed to use the remainder.

“There are people in the future looking to come into this [pellet fuel] market and we need them too,” Mr Douglas said.

The growth of biofuels in Tasmania is a chicken and egg problem.

Those involved have to create enough supply to increase demand and expand the industry, while remaining profitable.

DRI says some federal government assistance to get the industry over the initial hump is needed.

Pellet fuel could be used by dairies, local swimming pools and government buildings.

It could also be used in industries in the same way gas bottles are, Mr Hamilton said.

Establishing a pellet plant at Scottsdale would cost about $2m, he said.

DRI is deciding the best model to achieve that goal. It’s preferred approach is creating a cooperative, but this may not raise the funds needed.

The group, which restored the site with a $2.8m federal government grant, hopes to have enough tenants to let it reinvest money into further upgrades attracting businesses.

More rental income would let its volunteers begin employing a site manager, after years of dedicated but unpaid work.

They have met out-of-hours, and swapped ideas and progress reports via email and phone calls for years. 

Their work gave them a vehicle to help improve Dorset’s struggling economy.

“It was something for us to say ‘right, here this is something we can sink our teeth into’,” Mrs Hall said.

DRI will become an enabler and facilitator of timber businesses moving onto the site, Mr Hamilton said.

The sight of trucks and people working there has been encouraging for Scottsdale. 

Despite the struggle in recent years, Dorset’s economy is turning around, Mr Jessup said. 

Log trucks are travelling the region and forestry is rebooting, he said. 

“You can see the recovery coming through.”

Mr Hamilton hopes the hub will diversify Dorset’s economy.

“Sustainable prosperity is really what we’re on about.”