Land to be acquired for school in Charlemont

CHARLEMONT will get its first primary school, with funding allocated in this week’s 2022-23 State Budget to purchase land.

The school, which will service the rapidly growing communities in the Armstrong Creek growth area, has been given the interim name Horseshoe Bend Primary School.

South Barwon Labor MP Darren Cheeseman welcomed the project’s inclusion in the budget handed down by Treasurer Tim Pallas on Tuesday this week, as it followed a petition he established about a month ago calling for a school to be built in Charlemont.

The petition drew support from the local community, with more than 250 signatures.

“Thank you to everyone who signed my petition supporting a new school for Charlemont and surrounds,” Mr Cheeseman said.

“The Andrews Labor Government is once again delivering for our growing communities.

“This Budget invests in the health services and support that South Barwon needs, while also creating thousands of new jobs across our state.”

There are no other projects listed for Armstrong Creek other than the previously-announced Armstrong Creek Fire Station, which is still slated to be built, but specific details are hard to glean from the budget papers.

Construction of the Armstrong Creek Fire Station – which both Labor and the Liberals made commitments towards ahead of the 2018 state poll – is one of 17 projects in the Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) Capital Upgrades Program that were previously listed separately but are now “managed as a single capital upgrades program by the Community Safety Building Authority”.

The budget papers state there will be just under $38 million spent on those 17 fire stations in the next financial year and $55 million of expenditure remaining, with them all to be finished by the fourth quarter of 2025-26.

This would be a considerable delay to the Armstrong Creek Fire Station’s estimated completion in the fourth quarter of 2022-23 listed in the Victorian government’s 2021-22 State Capital

Program released in February, but the 2022-23 State Budget notes “individual projects may be completed ahead of this date”.

The listing appears to definitely confirm that Armstrong Creek’s fire station will be a FRV station.

The entire Geelong region was previously covered by the Country Fire Authority, 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.