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Vol. 18 No. 14
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Wednesday, September 30, 2015
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TOO MUCH FUN! Little Paige Davey, 2, of Horsham tries her luck gathering ducks at one of the busy sideshow amusements at Horsham Agricultural Society’s Horsham Show. Families made the most of ideal spring weather on Sunday to flock to Horsham Showground for the annual event. Organisers, plagued by inclement weather in the past few years, were delighted with the community response to a new one-day Sunday format. The show season is in full swing across the region. Picture: DEAN LAWSON
Council in lift push N
BY DEAN LAWSON
orthern Grampians Shire Council is likely to add its weight to a push to create a legislative environment where a multi million-dollar chair-lift attraction in the Grampians could become a reality. The council will discuss at its monthly meeting in Stawell on Monday night what needs to happen to attract private investment for a chair-lift, gondola or aerial tram-car project or other major park-based developments. Halls Gap businessman Jeff Lovel revealed last week that he and other Halls Gap Tourism members had explored the chair-lift concept for the past three years and confirmed that an investor had showed interest in supporting the project.
But he fears the parliamentary outcome of a State Government proposal to reduce lease agreements in National Parks from 99 to 21 or 50 years would prove unattractive to any investor. Northern Grampians chief executive Justine Linley has also been part of long-term discussions involving the concept and said the issue would be on the council agenda. She added that she would recommend the council raise concern about what the changes to lease agreements might mean to Grampians development to state Environment, Climate Change and Water Minister Lisa Neville. “We’ve spent at least three years looking at different types of projects and this one keeps coming up,” she said. “I’ve been talking to Tourism Victoria and infrastructure people in
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Another Halls Gap businessman Bob Adams, who with wife Stephanie operates Boroka Downs, said the project could become a reality if people were ‘given a chance’. “There are a whole lot of reasons why we need better access infrastructure in the Grampians but a 21-year lease would just make it too hard for any investor to be interested,” he said. Mr Adams said in his experience as development director for an interna-
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State Government and raised it with Parks Victoria about its feasibility and where it might go. “But really it is all about securing private investment and that would mean long-term investment. There needs to be some surety and that would come with a long-term lease agreement.”
Build and decorate a
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tional aquarium enterprise he had seen many projects that were of more benefit than harm to natural attractions. “We need to give projects like this a chance. Of course we don’t want to let the heathen masses come in and trample everything, but things can be done in the most passive of ways. In the tram car in Kuranda in Queensland for example, you are in the rainforest but you can’t touch it,” he said. “What we need in our national parks is ideas and opportunities. At the end of the day if we don’t like it we don’t have to have it, it’s that simple. “We need private investment and we want to someone to come in and build this. It’s about developing the region and getting it into the 21st century. In other countries, governments are falling over themselves to attract private investment.”
Mrs Linley said the fact that a private investor had shown interest in developing the chair-lift suggested that the concept was on the right track and the closest it had been to becoming a reality. “We’ve been running a project control group in the past 18 months focusing on developing Halls Gap as a tourist resort town. A big part of the work is getting a basic master plan together which the council accepted last month,” she said. “Now we’re onto the next stage of how to implement some of the ideas. The chair-lift proposal is one of those ideas.” The Victorian Parliament was scheduled to continue its debate on the park lease agreements today. Editorial, page 9.
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