Residents react to amalgamation query

A RECENT proposal for the municipality to see what it would look like for Golden Plains Shire to amalgamate into neighbouring local government areas has gotten some community members talking.

During council’s August meeting, Cr Owen Sharkey requested municipal officers provide a briefing day report to council on the process, and legislative requirements involved in an amalgamation with other LGAs.

“This is the second time in this term I’ve brought this to council,” he said.

“A report can do no harm. We can only learn more from the process. [It’s] the desire to explore the potential positives and negatives of amalgamation is shared by many people in our shire.

“Many residents south of Bannockburn and surrounds strongly associate themselves with the City of Greater Geelong. Similarly, those in the north feel a strong association… to Ballarat.

“There’s a clear and growing disconnection within our shire. We should be open to posing questions and conducting investigations.”

Cr Sharkey’s motion was carried with himself and councillors Les Rowe, Brett Cunningham, and Ian Getsom voting in favour.

Councillors Gavin Gamble, Helena Kirby and Clayton Whitfield voted against.

The municipality’s former acting CEO, who attended the meeting, said the report would come back to council at “not a lot of cost.”

Cameron Steele has lived in Bannockburn for more than 30 years. He said the idea of amalgamation “sets off alarm bells,” and harkens him back to the formation of the City of Greater Geelong, which merged six local municipalities in the 1990s including Geelong West, where he lived at the time.

“For those less well-off areas, that was a detrimental move and that lack of representation that amalgamation bought had real consequences,” he said. “I think we do work as a Shire. You’ve got a combination of smaller rural towns, and a rural sector, a couple slightly larger towns within it, and it works.

“People I’ve spoken to identify with being in Golden Plains Shire from Batesford to Linton. We’ve got something unique here that should be preserved.

“I can understand Cr Sharkey making this call. He’s representing the Batesford community and there’s people there who may assume they’ll get better services and lower rates as part of Geelong. There’s others who’d have a different view.

“The opportunities for smaller communities to have a voice within the Shire would be impacted negatively with amalgamation.”

To the north, Smythesdale’s Bill MacNeill has lived in the town for 20 years and is involved with a number of community groups and initiatives in the area.

He said he’s ambivalent about the idea of amalgamating.

“I reposted the item to a couple of our local Facebook pages here and it was interesting,” he said.

“It was sort of 50/50. A lot of people were appalled by the notion and said the rates would go up and we’d be just as forgotten as we might feel we are now.

“I’m squarely on the fence. I’ve been critical of the Shire and its focus on Bannockburn since it was created.

“It is problematic about how we feel we’re serviced by staff based in Bannockburn. It’s always enormously difficult for staff there to get up here. “I don’t think amalgamation would help with that. I think the big problem was when the VEC did away with representative ridings in the Shire.

“That meant effectively council could be located in one particular area.”

Emma Robbins, a candidate in the upcoming council election, said an amalgamation would likely not be in keeping with the shire’s established characteristics.

“I do work in Ballarat so I spend time there but I think people move to Scarsdale and Smythesdale and surrounds because they’re not interested in the more metropolitan lifestyle,” she said.

“We’d need to understand more about what the impacts would be and whether that urban growth zone in Ballarat would start to move out towards Smythesdale.”

Golden Plains Shire CEO Shane Walden said an investigation from council officers has begun.