Parks Hall lease negotiations near completion

NEGOTIATIONS are nearing completion with the City of Greater Geelong (COGG) taking on the future management of Parks Hall in Portarlington.

COGG will take over the lease of the hall from Bellarine Bayside, which will also include the relocation of the Portarlington Neighbourhood House.

COGG interim director of finance and strategy Brett Luxford said the City had been working with Bellarine Bayside and Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) to finalise lease negotiations for Parks Hall.

“All parties have now agreed to the terms of the lease,” Mr Luxford said.

“As the site is located on Crown land, the lease is being finalised and prepared by DELWP and we expect it to be finalised in the next few weeks.”

But while members of the Portarlington Neighbourhood House are excited about the move, some locals are concerned about the future of the hall.

Yvonne Parker, a Bellarine resident of more than 35 years, believes many Portarlington residents are against the idea of Portarlington Neighbourhood House relocating into the hall.

“Parks Hall in Portarlington is the best sized venue on the northern side of the Bellarine to cater for large crowds,” Ms Parker said.

“It caters well for the National Celtic Festival, primary school awards nights, big band concerts, Victorian Line Dancing Association weekends, wedding receptions, football club balls – various major performances/functions.

“It must stay intact and easily accessible for use by the whole community.”

Ms Parker said the idea of the PNH, supposedly in sharing mode, installing sliding partitions to separate study groups, or card players from a philosophy group, was fraught with inconvenience.

“In a growing community, with swelling PNH membership, it would take very little time be foremore permanent structures are sought/argued for,” she said.

“Making those partitions disappear before a large community function is a thought to hold.”

Ms Parker said Portarlington needed a Creative Arts Hub, so in the short-term, a solution would be an amalgamation of the COGG-managed, underutilised Senior Citizens Hall with PNH.

“Both bodies would be free to run their independent groups unhindered – far more easily than a group would be able to use Parks Hall in its entirety, without the hindrance of stacked partitions,” she said.

“Combining the needs of the Senior Citizens and PNH on a permanent basis would require erection of a second storey with a lift and partitioning of the upper floor into art studio, computer rooms and tutorial rooms.”

Bellarine Bayside manages both Parks Hall and the Indented Head Community Hall.