EARLIER this year, Sunraysia Daily ran a front-page story about the community backlash to a draft plan for a $6 million makeover of the Powerhouse precinct.
Locals were upset at aspects of the plan, most notably that a toilet block would be constructed where Shippy’s Cafe is located, blocking the view of the riverfront.
At the time, a senior person within Mildura Council contacted me with concerns about such a negative story and front page, which we respectfully debated.
I argued that council needn’t look at this story as being “negative”, but rather see it as an opportunity to listen to what their community was telling them. I asked would it be better for council to sneak these plans through and then build something the community ultimately hates, or listen and get it right the first time?
I also suggested they go and have a coffee at the riverfront themselves, just like we did, and ask locals, tourists and business owners what they think. That, to me, is consultation that cuts through bureaucracy and is also a whole lot cheaper than paying someone from Melbourne to do it for them. It’s real.
To council’s absolute credit, they listened to their community on that occasion. They literally went back to the drawing board with their architect, and came up with a new design for the Powerhouse precinct that the community has subsequently welcomed overwhelmingly.
So, on reflection, does council see that original front-page story as being negative or positive?
It’s a question they may want to ask themselves again following our lead story this week regarding concerns over the new $44 million sports precinct in Mildura South.
South Mildura Sporting Club broke its silence after two years of “frustrating” talks with council where they felt their voice has been largely ignored. Their main beef is over the absence of permanent undercover seating and car parking not being allowed around the main oval, leaving spectators, young and old, to deal with Mildura’s extreme winter and summer elements without cover.
That story came after I wrote in this column a fortnight ago about the major concerns Mildura basketball figures had in regards to spectator seating for the indoor show court, where they too claimed their concerns about the initial design had been “blatantly dismissed”.
So do the movers and shakers inside the walls of City Hall screw up the Sunraysia Daily in anger this week, or do they accept that this is the word on the street?
Council staff are local people, too, and I’ve no doubt they are desperate to see this new sporting precinct be a great success.
But with stage one nearly complete, are they now regretting not heeding the advice of their future user groups, who foresaw these issues at the design stage?
South Mildura president Kevin Burke questioned this week whether the Melbourne-based designers had ever been to a country football ground.
As it stands in stage one, the only undercover area for the main oval will be a small section under the player changerooms, which will not be for spectators.
So if you can’t get a car into the ground to watch from the sidelines, where do you go if it is raining? Or how do you escape the heat of a Mildura summer watching cricket?
Did the consultants consider where grandparents of an under-18 player will watch from on an icy Mildura morning? Or the young families who like to have nappy bags and other essentials for the kids in a car close at hand?
One parent whose partner plays at South told us this week she simply won’t go to home games if she can’t get her car into the ground.
So did council or the expensive consultants ask those questions? Because we have.
Sunraysia Daily has been a voice of this community for 100 years and the importance of that was hammered home last year when so many country newspapers across the country closed their doors.
To not ask these questions that the community wants answered is to be negligent in our job.
So, just like with the Powerhouse precinct, hopefully Mildura Council listens to what is being said now about its flagship sporting precinct and sets about addressing some of these major issues. Because we all want this to be a winner.
But don’t take the Sunraysia Daily‘s word for it, do what we do and go along to an SFNL game today, stand in the outer, have a yarn with the locals, and ask them what they think.
