Employment precinct on the map

THE City of Greater Bendigo has purchased a piece of land south of Marong to establish the Bendigo Regional Employment Precinct.

A total 155 hectares of farmland along the Calder Alternative and Wimmera Highways will eventually become the BREP, with the land purchased from owners for a “fair market value” according to City CEO Craig Niemann.

He said the “strategically located” site was narrowed down from a pool of 600 options based on its proximity to the growing suburb.

“There’s a township structure plan that predicts significant future growth in Marong,” he said.

“We think it’s really well located, it’s stood up against all of those other properties that we looked at.

“Growth in population means more jobs so we’ve got to create that from more of an industrial perspective as well as from a central Bendigo business perspective.”

Mr Niemann said the region was in need of more industrial land and the BREP could provide opportunities for around 3000 jobs in a variety of work in small, medium and large scale local and out of town businesses.

“That’s what we haven’t got right now is large areas of land available for large developments, so we think it opens the door a lot for new investment in business activity in greater Bendigo.

“From here, the City can appoint consultants to begin the various detailed planning studies that are required, and the City will work with the State Government to determine the best process for rezoning the land.

“The community will have the opportunity to provide input and feedback as part of the planning process.”

The 155 hectares of land purchased is within a 280-hectare preferred area, and Mr Niemann said the BREP could be expanded in the future and handed to the private sector “if and when that opportunity arises”.

“We think we’ve accumulated sufficient land to enable the project to proceed, we’ve done some work on how much we really needed so that’ll be enough to help us draw the infrastructure to the site. We’ll be working with the State and Federal Governments to help us fund that,” he said.