Dan Murphy's bottle shop plan anger, new hospital push, sporting mayhem and camping rule fury

A passionate group of Wodonga residents felt a vision for the city's former railway land had been massively short-changed with the prospect of a booze barn replacing a cinema and entertainment centre on a prominent corner block of Junction Place.

Discussions to tweak plans for the overall site based on the cinema development crashing in part due to COVID-19 were underway between council, developers and Development Victoria and had been quietly taking place in the background until a firestorm erupted when the Dan Murphy's bottle shop proposal came to light.

Faced with mounting opposition, the first retreat came when a round of community consultation was agreed to followed by the decision for the determination of the Junction Place master-plan being put in the hands of councillors rather than senior council staffers.

But anger further intensified when the plan hatched months ago went unchanged following the community's strong negative feedback.

The controversy had its big finale at the last council meeting of the year when councillors overwhelmingly read the play and rejected a staff recommendation to press forward with the master plan on an 8-1 vote with Cr John Watson the lone ranger in support.

Albury and Wodonga became rock solid on its next big infrastructure need for the future.

Rare unity emerged on the necessity for a new hospital to service the twin cities and wider region, but lingering questions on the specifics including whether the already stretched Albury site would be rebuilt or a greenfield site chosen remained unanswered.

Serious progress was frustrated by dithering on the release of a master plan which the NSW government funded in February.

Talk of a high level, top secret into a potential merger of health services in the region by the Victorian government was hosed down in 2021.

But not before long-serving Albury Wodonga Health board member Tim Farrah resigned due to the health service's response to speculation of its involvement in the discussions.

Shorter term major health infrastructure needs, the Albury emergency department and Nolan House upgrades, made some progress with plans released and funding locked in respectively on the two much needed projects.

Making equally painfully slow progress was the Albury-Wodonga Regional Deal, which did identify a new hospital as the area's No.1 priority.

After being wiped out totally in 2020 due to COVID-19, the region's major sporting competitions at least got a start before being prematurely ended to outbreaks on both sides of the border.

Cricket Albury-Wodonga premierships were played unlike last year with Lavington upsetting North Allbury in the Provincial grand final.

The Albury Gold Cup went ahead with crowds this year and was taken out by the Gai Waterhouse-Adrian Bott trained runner, Entente.

Football season started as scheduled, but coronavirus would soon rear its head again and cross-border complications became a major headache for the Ovens and Murray and Tallangatta and District leagues in particular.

The O and M managed 13 rounds before ultimately being called off and no premiership decided for two years in a row.

The Tallangatta and Hume league seasons suffered the same fate in having their seasons prematurely ended.

Leagues held best and fairest counts with Wangaratta's Callum Moore winning the Morris medal, Thurgoona's Michael Rampal taking out the Barton medal and Holbrook's Will Holmes claiming the Azzi medal.

Yackandandah's Bec O'Connell completed a clean-sweep of A grade netball best and fairests in the O and M, Tallangatta and Hume leagues.

Lavington's Maddi Lloyd won the O and M's Toni Wilson medal and Billabong Crows' Harriet Simpson took out the Hume league top honour.

Simmering anger towards a Victorian government election commitment to open up Crown land river frontages with free-for-all access via farmland exploded in 2021.

Farmers took their fight to the steps of the Victorian parliament with a major beef being liability in the event someone camping was killed or badly injured on private property.

The Andrews Labor government eventually retreated with a revised trial of sites announced.

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