Wimmera residents will wait at least another month until having their say on a new 20-year blueprint for Horsham.
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At Monday night's meeting, Councillor John Robinson signalled his intent to move a rescission motion immediately after council voted in favor of putting the Wimmera River Precinct and Central Activity District Vision and Master Plan on public exhibition for 28 days.
View Monday night's agenda below (plan on page 60).
Cr Robinson said his motion meant consultation would not take place until after the plan was debated again at a future meeting.
"We've missed on the governance on this," he said.
"Council staff and contractors have done work on this, but councillors have had almost no input into it," he said.
"I have some concerns about the multi-use sports stadium reappearing, when that basically fell over. The basketball association decided it did not want to be part of it and couldn't afford to. They haven't been consulted in the process, and that would be the major user of that group if everyone was still there."
Cr Robinson said the consultants who put together then plan, Urban Enterprise, Tract consultants and Twin Prism, relied on the council project control group for assurance the stadium's plan was robust.
"The project control group was never made aware of councillor concerns, including the need for ratepayers to subsidise this into the future, but also road safety issues and closing McBryde Street," he said.
"The council chambers block is also affected by the plan, right in the middle of the current police station is green open space. A station requires parking for emergency vehicles, and if you build a courthouse and police station you join them together with a security tunnel so prisoners can be transported form cells to court.
"The consultants agreed it was unworkable, so why would we go to the community with part of the plan that's unworkable?"
During the meeting Cr Robinson said the Horsham community was more concerned about easing traffic congestion in the CBD than "lattes by the lagoon", a reference to the cafe boardwalk at the base of Firebrace Street included in the concept plan.
Councillor David Grimble also voted against the motion, also citing a lack of consultation with affected community groups.
"I had a phone call from an impacted person who expressed the view a council officer had told this person not to spend any money because council had a vision and he wasn't part of that," he said at the meeting.
Crs Grimble and Robinson later said the groups included the Sawyer Park Miniature Railway, Horsham Lawn Tennis Club and Horsham Croquet Club.
Horsham Rural City Council chief executive Sunil Bhalla said council had been involved throughout the process of developing an overarching plan for the city.
"There has been a lot of consultation undertaken in the various, studies and strategies we've done around the CBD and river," he said, "so we didn't want to ask the same questions of the same people,, because guess what, they've told us over the years what needs to be done and they're frustrated with the lack of action on all this strategic work."
"This plan tries to put it all together."
Prior to the meeting, Mr Bhalla said there was already $2.5 million in funds committed towards the project, including $1.65 million from the federal government made the week before the election. He said as yet, that money was not in council's bank account.
Mr Bhalla said the study and masterplan cost council in the range of $60,000 to $70,000.
Councillor Pam Clarke said the $1.65 million was not definitely being put towards a cafe.
"We didn't even know what the minister was going to announce an election commitment," she said.
"He didn't know what it was for, and neither did we until he announced it, so we didn't ask them for that money, they offered it. When the mayor was brought forward to talk about what could happen on the river, he mentioned quite a few things, one of them being a cafe."
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