NOVEMBER 23, 2016 \ STARWEEKLY.COM.AU
NEWS + SPORT + THE WEST’S BEST PROPERTY GUIDE
In this swim together Woman of steel, Williamstown’s Zoe Ferguson is bay-bound. She and family members are among the throng signed up for Victoria’s peak open-water swimming event to be held off Williamstown beach on December 17. Williamstown Swimming and Life Saving Club and Swimming Victoria are hosting the second state Open Water Championships and the Williamstown Open Water (WOW) Challenge. Ferguson, 41, came fourth at the recent Ironman Triathlon World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. “I’ve qualified for the Ironman World Championships twice … only the top two per cent in the world go,” she said. Ferguson, who started off doing the Lorne Pier to Pub 1.2-kilometre open water swimming race, will be entering the WOW Challenge with her husband and their two children, aged 11 and eight. More than 1000 people are expected to swim in what is the state’s only FINA-sanctioned open-water event. Among the headlining entrants are Australian Olympic cult hero Jarrod Poort and English Channel recordholder Chloe McCardel. The life saving club is holding open water swim classes and training groups every Saturday from 8am-noon. To register, visit wowchallenge.com.au Zoe Ferguson with her children Molly, 8, and Alyna, 11, are taking part in next month’s 5-kilometre Williamstown swim. (Damjan Janevski)
Goya Dmytryshchak
Child centre on the brink By Benjamin Millar
12331274-RC46-16
A West Footscray childcare centre is seeking urgent support to survive in the face of a 12-month redevelopment blow-out predicted to create a $1 million revenue shortfall. Parents at Church Street Children’s Centre descended on last week’s Maribyrnong council meeting to detail impacts of the botched redevelopment of the council’s building. The committee of management has also written to Maribyrnong councillors outlining the severity of the impact on the centre’s viability, noting it has already had to cut staff and increase fees to help stem spiralling losses. The council had initially told parents their
children would remain in place while the centre was redeveloped to increase capacity from 40 to 76 places, a project due to be finished by January. In June, families were forced to relocate to the Maribyrnong Community Centre for six months after an 11th hour discovery that there would be no working toilets at the Church Street centre. “A range of structural issues” has now pushed the project deadline out a further 12 months until 2018. Many families have already abandoned the service and the uptake of places in 2017 is well below projected numbers as families baulk at another 12 months of travelling to Maribyrnong.
Council community services director Clem Gillings said nobody in council was happy with where the project was headed. “Unfortunately, we received some time ago some very poor advice from architects and structural engineers and now we collectively have to fix this problem, making sure we end up with a very good outcome regardless.” Council chief executive Stephen Wall said the council had “formed a blacklist of contractors” and was seeking damages. Mayor Catherine Cumming said the “bad situation” could provide an opportunity to redevelop the entire site from scratch. • The reporter uses the Church Street Children’s Centre childcare service.
Church Street Children’s Centre parents are worried about the service’s future. (Benjamin Millar)