Campaspe Shire Council has threatened to close down the Wyuna Memorial Hall because its condition has deteriorated and the council considers it unsafe.
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In order to save the hall, the managing committee has offered to buy the hall and has entered into negotiations with the council.
This is the second story in a series about the events leading up to the current situation, based around documents released by Campaspe Shire Council under Freedom of Information legislation.
The destiny of the Wyuna Memorial Hall is wrapped up in a policy to rationalise community halls and services.
Although some Campaspe Shire hall committees have been told their futures have been determined by the Victorian Government's move to abolish section 86 committees (volunteer committees which manage shire facilities on behalf of the council) last year, the genesis of the Campaspe Shire Council policy goes back to the council's Strategic Resources Plan, which began a review of council assets and services.
Under new management options, the council can still continue to own the halls, but in some cases the committees have been offered a choice of buying the halls, thus removing the liability of maintenance from the shire's asset base.
A 2017 Campaspe Shire Council report titled, Places of Assembly/community facilities policy implementation plan, released to Country News under the Freedom of Information Act, describes the background to community halls in areas of population decline, but does not concede that the halls have a valuable role to play today. The report points out that local government is not legally obliged to provide public halls.
“Importantly, the ongoing provision of facilities in locations of decline does not necessarily foster community cohesion. It potentially has the adverse impact by causing and protracting the isolation of individuals to cope with change,” the report by a shire project officer said.
This followed the author's acknowledgement that there were no specific academic studies on the management of service provision to towns or communities as they undergo population decline.
The 2017 council adopted the plan and in speaking to the motion at a public council meeting, Cr Leigh Wilson's words were almost prophetic when he warned of the risks of delaying an assessment of the long-term costs to the shire.
He pointed to the risk of budget shortfalls impacting on the provision of other programs.
“If we don't put policies into place about how we fund that infrastructure and make some tough decisions about what halls can be decommissioned, that we might exit out of, we might sell or merge, we will be left at a point where we can't afford their replacement and which communities do we single out and say: sorry, the kitty is dry, we can't open your hall, we can't fix it.”
The same day, November 21, 2017, the councillors received an officer's report outlining why the shire was not going to fund improvements to the Wyuna hall and concluding that the hall will not be renewed or replaced.
None of the councillors speaking to the adoption of the new policy at the council meeting mentioned that Wyuna's future was already in doubt.
Former councillor of the merged Deakin Shire and current committee member for the Nanneella Public Hall, Murray McDonald, has spent decades working in public life and told Country News the relationship between hall committees and Campaspe Shire Council was sometimes strained.
He accepted council needed to be a prudent manager of its assets, and he accepted that many halls were built when transport was problematic. However, he said the halls still had a valid role to play in small villages and communities.
Mr McDonald said there was some level of distrust between the hall committee and the shire, and he believed the shire did not always share information with the committees.
He said the shire was also "process driven" rather than looking for alternative, creative, solutions to problems facing rural communities.
A list taken from the Campaspe Shire 2017 plan to implement changes for public halls.
THE IMPLEMENTATION PLAN WILL BE STAGED, AS OUTLINED BELOW:
Stage 1
i. Assess individual localities.
ii. Assess available facilities in these localities.
iii. Assess population and social trends to ascertain need.
iv. Develop an engagement plan and schedule, identify resource requirements and budgets.
Stage 2
v. Consult with individual committees and managers of facilities.
vi. Negotiate partnerships where identified as appropriate and achievable.
vii. Formulate draft recommendations, including time frames.
vii. Engage with individual communities in each locality.
ix. Develop final recommendations.
x. Inform council of recommendations.
Stage 3
xi. Develop a delivery schedule to action recommendations.
xii. Establish a program to deliver recommendations.
xiii. Inform council.
Shepparton News assistant editor