A COUNCILLOR has called for an immediate rethink of the Mildura CBD plan to give greater priority to putting a 21st century face on Langtree Mall.
Former mayor Glenn Milne has recently conducted his own survey of the mall’s business owners.
He said the message was clear that “change is needed”.
“The future of the mall is a big issue. It’s got to be addressed now,” Cr Milne said.
“I’ve spoken to various business owners already and there are various views out there. But there is one consistent message coming from all of them: that something needs to be done to fix it.
“The majority of them say the mall has had its day.
“Other malls in similar-sized towns around Australia are being dismantled, taken out and parking and one-way traffic put through them.”
Cr Milne was part of the last council that gave the nod to the Mildura CBD Plan 2020-2035 – put together by Melbourne planning firm GHD – about eight months ago.
However, the 152-page document is short on detail about how to tackle the myriad problems facing the mall, where nearly half of the 57 shops are vacant.
Among its main recommendations, though, was for the council to consider the programming of the mall and establishing suitable spaces for formal, informal (busking) and planned events.
It also called for the targeting of “a range of niche-retailers and other experiential businesses to create a point of difference and further activate the mall”.
However, the guts of the plan deals with broader CBD planning issues, such as connecting the mall through Feast Street and down to the riverfront.
Cr Milne said a “more specific plan” was needed to help bring “relevance” back to the mall, which opened in 1986.
“It’s the heart of Mildura and we have to get it right,” he said.
“You can have an overall plan (for the CBD) and parts of that can possibly work.
“But sometimes you do have to revisit it and say, ‘well, the world’s changed a fair bit since this plan was done and we really need to adapt accordingly’.
“I just don’t think we can continue down this path just because there was a plan done.
“We have to listen to the community and if they change their mind, then the council has to give serious consideration to the overwhelming views on the mall.”
Cr Milne said he would next seek a meeting with former Mildura City Heart chairman Ryan Hammerton in relation to his plan to open up the mall with a one-way street that flows from Eighth to Ninth streets and has 43 parking spaces.
“Like Ryan, I’d like to see traffic back in there and parking,” he said.
“It’s a country town and people do like to park out the front of where they are going and they do like to drive through the town and look at what’s happening.
“We need an overall discussion about all this – and the solution isn’t always palatable for some people.
“But something needs to be done before we lose more businesses in the mall.”
Council chief executive officer Sarah Philpott said the mall was a “complex” issue and “I don’t think there’s one fix to it”.
“Council’s position is, we’ve adopted a CBD plan that looks at how to connect the mall through Feast Street to the riverfront,” she said during a recent interview with Sunraysia Daily.
“That work is thinking about what does the whole city look like, and how does the whole city develop.
“We do hear from people about (their) concerns about the mall, which is understandable.
“It’s got a number of layers (including) the changing face of retail.”
