Liberals pledge ambulance station for Armstrong Creek

THE Liberals will build an ambulance station as well as a fire station in Armstrong Creek if they win the coming state election, and Liberal candidate for South Barwon Andrew Katos is baffled why the two facilities have not yet been built.

Opposition Leader Matthew Guy and Mr Katos visited Armstrong Creek to make the election commitment towards the station, the final site of which will be identified in consultation with Ambulance Victoria.

This will include consideration of land set aside in the structure plans for Armstrong Creek on Boundary Road near the corner of the Surf Coast Highway.

The Liberals say the ambulance station could be built next to the fire station for Armstrong Creek pledged by Labor ahead of the 2018 election.

“The health system has been fundamentally underfunded and mismanaged for years and Victorians are being denied an ambulance when they need one,” Mr Guy said.

“This commitment to build a new ambulance station in Armstrong Creek will back our healthcare workers to give the care locals deserve.”

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.

Speaking to this newspaper earlier this week, Mr Katos said the City of Greater Geelong had identified the parcel of land on Boundary Road in 2014 for an emergency services precinct.

“We would endeavour to put an ambulance station there, but also, as the government has made no action on the fire station, we would certainly look at the potential to co-locate both of those together, which is the logical thing to do.”

Mr Katos estimated the ambulance and fire stations together would cost about $12 million to construct.

“In the scheme of a state budget, a fire station and an ambulance station are not things that are going to bankrupt the state,” he said.

“These are vital pieces of infrastructure for the community, but they (Labor) are just not building them.

“For the life of me, I can’t answer why they haven’t built these things already.”

He said the Liberals saw a need for an ambulance station in the growth area.

“Armstrong Creek is right in the middle between the Torquay and Belmont stations, so it makes sense to put it there considering all the growth that’s occurred, but at the same time, I think it would be foolish to not build the ambulance station and then at the same time build the fire station, co-located – I think the community would expect that, it’s the sensible thing to do.”

He said Armstrong Creek would also need another secondary school in the near future, as the relocated Oberon High School was already at capacity.

A public transport link (trains, trams or something else) from the Geelong railway line into Armstrong Creek and Torquay has been slated for years. Mr Katos said the Liberals did not have a policy on the subject, but believed that

putting a stop in Armstrong Creek, if such a link was built, would make sense.

“The easement’s there to Mount Duneed Road, so it’s sort of one of those ones that if it doesn’t go through to Torquay, I don’t see the point in building it, to be quite frank,” he said.

“That’s a weird one – there’s a cohort of people who really want it (a public transport link to Torquay), and a cohort of people who don’t want it at all.”