A DECISION by the Wangaratta Council to commit to the city’s saleyards redevelopment will put pressure on the region’s state MP Tim McCurdy to help find the money for the project to go ahead.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The council’s saleyards decision comes with a proviso — that tenders fall within an allocated budget of $3.5 million and $500,000 is found from government or another funding source.
Mr McCurdy has welcomed the council’s decision and says he will begin lobbying his Nationals’ colleagues Peter Ryan and Peter Walsh for their support.
The council has also authorised Wangaratta’s chief executive Brendan McGrath to seek expressions of interest for the purchase or lease of the saleyards.
One member of the Wangaratta District Livestock Producers Group, Greg Mirabella, grilled council administrators to determine if the city would sell the yards should the right price be offered, saying that it did not make sense to go to the market with an asset it may or may not sell.
Former councillor Paul O’Brien questioned upgrading the facility and then selling it.
But chief administrator Ailsa Fox said the council is yet to make a decision to sell the yards.
