Rochester Recreation Reserve’s Fight for Lights has taken a twist that could potentially absolve the Campaspe Shire of any major financial commitment to the project.
The recreation reserve’s management committee is forging ahead under its own steam in a bid to secure funding for its $1.43 Moon Oval lighting upgrade project.
But without at least some support from the Campaspe Shire councillors the project will remain out of reach as any state government grant application must be completed through council.
Committee of management chair Brendan Martin has been working closely with shire officers, however, the project has spent more than a decade jumping through hoops that he said needed to come to an end.
“These projects should be council's bread and butter, they should be there to facilitate the building of strong communities with safe and appropriate infrastructure,” Mr Martin said.
“They are being derelict in their obligations to our community.”
Since its last failed attempt to gain council support in securing $458,00 from the Local Roads Infrastucture fund, Mr Martin and his group have been seeking alternate avenues of funding support.
The committee is expecting to hear back “any time now” in regard to a Department of Energy Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) funding application — which, if successful, would be a $520,000 contribution to the project.
Informal meetings with the Campaspe Shire and Sport Recreation Victoria have also been held.
Since its last failed attempt to gain council support in securing $458,000 from the Local Roads Infrastructure fund, at Campaspe Shire’s March meeting, Mr Martin has been busy working with all three partries — DEECA, SRV and the shire.
He said the management committee did not have adequate funds to “go it alone”.
“We don’t really have a beef with the council staff as such. More at the councillors themselves,” he said.
SRV has informed the committee that the application for $250,000 toward the new lighting was rejected on the basis that the Rochester Recreation Reserve did not satisfy project requirements.
Works that would satisfy SRV and Powercor guidelines are reliant on funds from the flood-recovery grant through DEECA.
“DEECA funding would allow an upgrade of the internal electrical network, which was flood impacted, in turn satisfying SRV and enabling council to make another application to the Country Football Netball Program when the next round opens, which is at the end of this year,” he said.
Mr Martin said SRV was keen to see the project go ahead, but could not provide funding until the electrical network was upgraded.
In order for that to happen the committee needs the DEECA funds. A vicious circle.
“Once the electrical work is done council can re-submit the SRV application on our behalf,” Mr Martin said.
That would bring to an end what Mr Martin estimated (he was not part of the committee of management when this project began) to be 15 years of back and forward.
He described the process used by Campaspe Shire to allocate much sought-after financial support to community-managed recreation reserves through the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure (LRCI) fund as a “non-policy of convenience”.
He, and the volunteer group that manages the major sporting and community facility of the flood-ravaged Rochester community, missed out on two potential funding windfalls because of an “unwritten” council policy.
The first being the $458,000 from the LRCI and the second the $250,000 from SRV.
While neither was a 100 per cent certain to be rubber-stamped, they were both made completely impossible by decisions made at Campaspe Shire Council meetings — based on the fact the shire does not “traditionally” fund projects on crown land managed by community groups.
Or does it?
According to the management committee there is evidence to suggest the contrary.
Mr Martin claims LRCI money has been used to fund “a suite of upgrades across many reserves within the Campaspe Shire including Lancaster and Gunbower as crown land reserves with volunteer committees”.
“We do not begrudge these reserves getting their projects up, it is more to highlight the hypocrisy and inconsistency in councils’ application of their policies,” he said.
In March this year the council voted down a motion by Rochester ward councillor Paul Jarman to submit an application to the LRCI program for $458,000 and, if it was unsuccessful, council find the money from its own coffers.
That motion was defeated 2-5, Cr Jarman receiving only the support of Kyabram-Deakin ward councillor Daniel Mackrell in the chamber occupied by seven of the nine councillors — councillors Leanne Pentreath and Tony Marwood were both absent.
Based on the two absentee councillors’ records the vote may well have been 4-5 if they were in attendance, Cr Pentreath a Lockington person who has strongly supported the development of open spaces and recreation facilities.
Cr Marwood, during his election campaign, also made the recreation reserve enhancement issue a major talking point when comparing the Moama facility and Echuca’s Victoria Park.
The motion fell flat and despite obvious mixed feelings from at least a couple of councillors it was revised to include only one recommendation to submit a $250,000 funding application on behalf of the committee to the state government’s Country Football and Netball Program.
In knocking back the suggested LRCI funding submission the shire put the death knell on a $250,000 application — which was described by a spokesperson from Sport Recreation Victoria as incomplete.
Mr Martin said the Campaspe Shire had no consistency to its distribution of funds from the LRCI program.
“There are anomalies to what has been funded and those, like the Moon Oval lights project, that have missed out,” he said.
He said Rochester Recreation Reserve, unlike some of the successful projects, was bringing a significant amount of its own finances to the party — $392,000 of the $1.1 million project, in fact.
Mr Martin said his group felt like it was playing on an “uneven playing field” in regard to competing for financial support from the local government authority.
He said readily available council documents proved inconsistencies with the — as yet — unwritten shire policy in regard to funding projects on crown land managed by volunteer committees.
This was the “unwritten rule” cited by Mayor Rob Amos as among the major reasons for the council deciding not to advocate to the LRCI program for the almost $1/2 million shortfall in funding for the Moon Oval lights project.
The other was that if the LRCI funding application was unsuccessful the shire would be left “holding the baby” for the funding required to complete the $1.1 million lighting project at Rochester.
Cr Amos, along with other councillors who voted against the project (councillors Weston, Weller, Zobec and Gates), said — in his time anyway — the shire had never financially supported projects on crown land managed by a committee of management.
The March meeting ended with the shire leader saying a policy would be developed in this regard.
Mr Martin, however, said a project at Lancaster reserve (on the eastern side of Kyabram) for re-surfacing of the netball courts was on crown land that was managed by a committee of management.
That was confirmed by councillor officers in a meeting with the Campaspe News on Friday, but it was explained the project was a “compliance” issue and — as such — was a priority item with council.
Toolleen Recreation Reserve (another crown land, community managed facility) is also applying for funds from the DEECA flood-recovery program.
The Toolleen project is another priority item with council as its facilities also have compliance issues.
The project is worth $608,250 and is listed as a proposed project in the 2023-24 draft budget. The $1.143 Moon Oval lighting project is one of three grant-dependent projects listed below the Toolleen project (details are on page 71 of the shire’s 2023-24 capital works program — 7.6 grant funding).
The Rochester project, along with a $2.5 million upgrade of the Wilf Cox Pavillion at Kyabram Recreation Reserve are all banking on LRCI funding.
