Katos calls out Labor on Armstrong Creek fire station

ARMSTRONG Creek will not have a fire station for at least 14 months, and Liberal candidate for South Barwon Andrew Katos said Labor not building the facility was “putting lives at risk” in the growth area.

The facility is a hot topic for Victoria’s major political parties, with both Labor and the Liberals making election commitments towards it.

About a month before the 2018 state poll, then-Minister for Emergency Services James Merlino and then-Labor candidate for South Barwon Darren Cheeseman announced the pledge for a new $8.18 million three-bay fire station to be built in the growth area.

The station would include eight bedrooms as a base for 21 career staff to support surrounding volunteer firefighters.

Labor provided $2.8 million of funding in the Victorian Budget 2018/19 to purchase land for the station, which was at one point to be located on the south-eastern side of Boundary Road at its intersection with Torquay Road.

Land was then reportedly secured at McCanns Road in Mount Duneed in early 2019.

Labor’s pledge followed a visit by Opposition Leader Matthew Guy and Mr Katos (then the South Barwon Liberal MP) to Armstrong Creek four months earlier, where they committed $7.1 million towards construction of a new CFA and ambulance station if they formed government.

Earlier this month, Mr Katos said without urgent action, the Armstrong Creek community remained at high risk.

He used a fire that mostly destroyed the home of an Armstrong Creek family on February 1 as an example.

“This vital facility should already be built and operational and it is a disgrace that the inaction of Darren Cheeseman is putting lives at risk,” Mr Katos said.

“It is time the Andrews Labor Government stops taking the community for granted and gets on with providing the necessary infrastructure to keep the community safe.”

According to Labor’s 2021-22 State Capital Program, the Armstrong Creek Fire Station is not expected to be built until the fourth quarter of the 2022-23 financial year.

The project has a total estimated investment of $5.6 million, with estimated expenditure of $31,000 to the end of the 2020-21 financial year and $1 million in expenditure in the 2021-22 financial year.

“Victoria’s fire services – including its firefighters and volunteers – work tirelessly to protect lives and properties across the state and the Armstrong Creek community should be in no doubt that they are well protected,” a Victorian government spokesperson said.

As well as an opening date, it is also not definitively clear whether the Armstrong Creek Fire Station will be run by the mostly-volunteer Country Fire Authority (CFA) or the career firefighters of Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV).

The 2021-22 State Capital Program states the project had been transferred from the CFA to the FRV.

The entire Geelong region was previously covered by the CFA, with some stations volunteer-only and some integrated stations with a mix of volunteers and paid firefighters.

Under the 2019 fire services reforms, FRV stations now cover not only metropolitan Melbourne but also outer urban areas and larger regional centres.

According to their website, the only FRV stations in the Geelong region are in Lara, Corio, Geelong City, Belmont, and Ocean Grove.