Awards winners a shining light in community

ONE million native plants and thousands of hours spent on weed control at Armstrong Creek has led to developer Warralily being widely acknowledged and recognised for its revegetation work.

The City of Greater Geelong acknowledged the regeneration work undertaken in the eight-kilometre stretch between Horseshoe Bend Road to Barwon Heads Road in an inspirational video.

Warralily Urban Design Manager Jeremy Minter is humble and proud of the success of the revegetation project, which is rich in biodiversity.

“We designed and constructed the creek system and revegetation works,” he said.

“At this stage we have won over a dozen state and national awards for environmental excellence for the work we have done along Armstrong Creek.

“It was basically just graded paddocks with no areas of remnant vegetation to work with,” he said, referring to the state of Armstrong Creek prior to
the development.

“It had all been stripped out by the early farmers back in the day, the creek from Horseshoe Bend Road to Barwon Heads Road was just a small channel along the fence line.

“It was maybe a metre and half deep and maybe four metres across. It is now anywhere up to 100 metres across and four-to-five metres deep.”

Mr Minter said that native animals were inhabiting the regenerated land.

“We have over 70 species of new bird life recorded in the area which had never been recorded in that area before. There has been huge shift and change in the environment and biodiversity.”

Cr Ron Nelson acknowledged the positive impact of Warralily.

“It’s such a great project to get one million native plants in such a small space,” he said.

“It really goes to the diversity of the area. Its clever and creative, and certainly this area which flows onto the wetlands have been such a good initiative.

“Back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, developments barely had footpaths, and now look what they’re doing, it’s such a quantum leap in developer contributions.”

The developers work in close partnership with the City of Greater Geelong and are showing no signs of slowing down.

They recently completed phase one of a native grass land project which will then be handed over to the City and next year they will start on a new section of creek revegetation.

“There is still a lot more to do. It’s been an absolute pleasure to work on,” Mr Minter said.