A BATTLE is looming over the management of the redeveloped Wangaratta Livestock Exchange with saleyard users and the city’s administrators in opposing corners.
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The Wangaratta yards are one of the few still under council management but, while it would retain ownership of the land and improvements, administrators wand a producer-based cooperative to run the site as a viable commercial enterprise.
“As administrators, we don’t believe it’s council's role to run saleyards and we want to hand it over to a cooperative to manage,” Wangaratta council’s chair of administrators Ailsa Fox said this week.
“We see the cooperative as a way of using their skills and knowledge of the industry to run the yards and build on its productivity.”
But many users of the Shanley Street site believe the proposal of a producer-owned management system would not benefit all parties.
Issues such as a contracted minimum throughput of stock for sale and conflicts of interest between producers and selling agents were sticking points.
“We’d prefer any decision to be made by the next elected council, not the administrators,” Landmark Wangaratta livestock manager Daniel Fischer said.
Victorian premier Daniel Andrews visited the saleyards on Tuesday and gave the $3.7 million upgrade project the thumbs up.
Once complete, the saleyards will benefit from new roofing over the existing yards, soft flooring, dust suppression system, lighting and stormwater drainage, yard modification, new auctioneer’s walkway and new stormwater capture and reuse system.
The new roofing and structural steel works were completed in recent weeks and the project is on track for completion by the end of January.
“I grew up on a beef farm here in Wangaratta. I know how important the saleyards are to our farmers and their families,” Mr Andrews said during his visit.
The redevelopment was expected to create up to 36 new jobs across the region, while adding about $5.5 million to the region’s economy each year.
Work was due to be finished by the end of the year.
“It’s got one of the better roofs on saleyards is the district,” Mr Fischer said.
“Once the soft flooring goes in it will cut the noise level down and make a big difference.
“Our clients, and the general community, have been very supportive. The development has been well received.”
The saleyards are the second largest in the North East, behind NVLX Wodonga, hosting 65 sales annually with a throughput of about 50,000 cattle.
NVLX’s average throughput was about 205,000 head.