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www.wangarattachronicle.com.au
Wednesday, October 18, 2023
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RAISING AWARENESS AND FUNDS FOR BREAST CANCER A MORNING tea at Café The PreVue last week raised awareness of local breast cancer services, and funds to support them. Hosted by Northeast Health Wangaratta’s breast care nurses Sam Cooper and Erin Primmer (pictured), the annual ‘pink morning tea’ ensured information was at hand for those seeking advice about breast cancer and early detection, as well as details about breast cancer screening services available locally. All funds raised on the day through donations will go to the Northeast Health Wangaratta Breast and Gynaecological Cancer Service. PHOTO: Kurt Hickling
YOUNG BOXERS SHINE ON DEBUT Sport
PERMIT DELAY Minister to gget more p power to speed p up p statewide slow down on p planning gp process
PLANNING permit application processing times in Wangaratta dipped to new lows last financial year with just 55.61 per cent processed within the timeframe and the average application taking 105.8 days between lodgment and determination. To address similar trends across Victoria, the State Government has announced new measures to hand
BY STEVE KELLY skelly@ nemedia.com.au
over extended powers to the Minister for Planning to approve residential developments speed up the building of affordable housing. Minister Sonya Kilkenny
will have the power to make decisions on residential developments worth at least $15 million in regional Victoria that include at least 10 per cent affordable housing under the plan. The government reported that the planning approval system isn’t working like it should and decisions aren’t getting made fast enough. Over the last year, the
number of dwellings approved across the state fell by 26.1 per cent. At a council level, there’s a backlog of around 1400 planning permit applications for multi-unit housing that have been sitting with councils for more than six months waiting for a decision. Some 550 of those applications have been
waiting for more than a year. Of these, 78 projects have a development cost of more than $10 million – and would deliver around 4900 new homes. In Wangaratta, last financial year there were 252 permit applications received, and of these there were 237 determinations, six notices of decision issued, 209 permits issued, and 18 withdrawn/
lapsed/not required. The permits involved 17 dwellings and 423 lots with an estimated cost of works at $57m and an average per permit of $269,000. These figures were down on the previous year which involved $111m worth of permit works, including 53 dwellings and 124 subdivisions (lots). ■ Continued page 3
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