Anglesea war memorial waits on go for build

THE Anglesea and District War Memorial could start construction within weeks if the working plans are approved by the Surf Coast Shire.

The committee behind the memorial met in late March to review draft full-scale versions of the name plaques to go on the stone walls.

The project is supported by the Anglesea RSL, the local Lions Club and the Anglesea and District Historical Society.

Memorial committee member Adrian Hunter said the first meeting about the memorial – to be built in Cameron Park, opposite the shopping centre – was held in July 2019, and a fundraising campaign was launched in November of that year.

“The RSL have a little house in Murray Street and they’ve got flagpoles and a couple of plaques, but they wanted to set aside a space for a nice memorial.

“The Great Ocean Road, which runs through Anglesea, was built by returned soldiers and everyone thought it’d be nice to have a memorial in a public area with all the names of people who have been part of the Australian armed forces or peacekeeping forces from basically Bellbrae through to Fairhaven and Moggs Creek.

“This is also for future generations of kids who’ll grow up in Anglesea, and schools, who can go and see who from the district went to war, and how a lot of the streets were named after families from the First World War.”

The memorial will cost about $70,000 to build.

“A lot of money was donated by the public,” Mr Hunter said. “There were a couple of very kind donations of $5,000 or so.”

He said Aireys Inlet stonemason Steve Duff had been slated to build the memorial from local sandstone.

“The final engineering plans have got to be stamped by the shire, which we think will happen in the next few weeks, and then we’ll be able to start.

“We’re hoping it’ll be ready for about late October – we’re hoping it’ll be done before then because a lot of people go away for the winter, so we want to have some kind of opening when those people are back.”

People can still make donations to the memorial through the Anglesea and District Community Bank.