Vol. No. Vol. 2218No. 21 27
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COSTUMES AND COLOUR: Ararat Dance Centre students slipped on costumes and slid on their dancing shoes for their eighth annual concert at the weekend. The Ararat Town Hall performances showcased more than 100 dancers’ skills in genres from classical ballet to hiphop and contemporary dance. Penelope Alexander strikes a pose in rehearsal for a jazz routine. For more dance pictures and Natimuk and District Gymnastic Club’s two-day invitational competition, see page 23. Picture: PAUL CARRACHER
Group: Halt plans BY COLIN MacGILLIVRAY
A
ratepayers’ group has launched a petition aimed at stalling Horsham Rural City Council plans to redevelop the city during the next two decades.
Horsham Rural Ratepayers and Residents, HRRR, unveiled a petition at a meeting on Sunday calling for the council to suspend work under the umbrella of its Transforming Horsham project until ‘an acceptable level of community engagement, inclusion and transparency of process in these and other future plans by the council has been resolved’. Included under the Transforming Horsham project are a City to River Masterplan, Horsham Urban Trans-
port Plan, Open Space Strategy and Horsham South Structure Plan. HRRR president Di Bell said the group was confident it could get enough community backing to force the council to rethink the projects. She said the group’s primary concerns were a perceived lack of community engagement during the formulation of the plans and that ratepayers did not know how much they would cost. “Because people weren’t consulted early in the piece this is what it has come to,” she said. “If you’re doing true community engagement, you work with the community before you hire consultants. “You can still bring in ideas through
that process – ideas that the community might not have thought about, but you go to them first. “It was a consultant-driven plan initially, and we’re not confident it will be adjusted appropriately to reflect what the community actually wants.” HRRR member and former Horsham mayor Kevin Dellar said the group had a litany of issues with the plans in their draft form, including the removal of lawn tennis and croquet courts and the Sawyer Park Miniature Railway from Horsham Botanic Gardens; a proposed multi-sport venue being built partially on a floodplain; the removal of angled parking spaces in the central business district in favour of parallel parks; the closure of McBryde
Street; and the redevelopment of Horsham City Oval potentially encroaching on Sawyer Park. “It’s taking us on a pathway that hasn’t got the public on board,” he said. “No way on earth would any of us councillors from 12 or 15 years ago ever even have considered any of these proposals without first breaking the water with the people. “They’ve brought consultants in from day one and the people have been tagging along behind.”
Broad vision
But council chief executive Sunil Bhalla said the plans were still in their infancy and only represented a broad vision.
He said the council’s objective had always been to incorporate more community feedback into the plan as it moved into more technical design stages. “There are many other layers of community engagement,” he said. “People need to understand this is not a done deal, this is the first step in a multi-step process. “We’ve done a number of strategies over the years and we’ve felt a general frustration in the community that we’ve done this strategic work and it hasn’t actually led to anything. This was about putting together all the strategic work we’ve done in the past so we’re not reinventing the wheel.” Continued page 3
IN THIS ISSUE • Tennis club seeks heritage listing • RM Showcase success • Volleyball tournament Phone: 03 5382 1351 Read it online: www.theweeklyadvertiser.com.au
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