Opponents of a plan to remove a historic Riverina submarine landmark to build a carpark say they are confident they have reached a "win for all sides".
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Holbrook Vietnam veteran Morrie Jeppesen said he and two other opponents to the proposal, ex-submariners Michael White and Terry Roach, met on Friday with the owners of the Holbrook IGA, which is being considered for redevelopment.
The trio said they were "disturbed" at the thought of the Commander Holbrook Memorial Park B11 submarine being moved in the name of a commercial venture.
Mr Jeppesen said three options had been "mulled over" with the IGA owners, business partners Mick Dare and Nick Cook, during a virtual meeting on April 19.
"The owners said, you know, it's a long hard road," Mr Jeppesen said. "The council requires them to have extra car parks if they go ahead with the expansion of the IGA; because of the size of the proposed new shop, you've got to have so many car parks.
"Our plan A was to stop the car park completely, but I don't think that's going to happen; but the IGA owners were so good about the whole thing and very open to compromise.
"So plan B was proposed at the meeting, which is to divide the park, so that the car park would take up the western side of the land, and we could keep the B11 where it is and the rose garden would be retained as it is."
Mr Jeppesen said the community would have a smaller memorial park, "but we're OK with that and they were very open to hear any ideas, they said they can amend stuff, this is just the forward planning".
Mr Jeppesen said he understood an architect was being consulted to "fine-tune the forward planning stage".
"They don't want to destroy any heritage, they were fully along that line, they understand that thing, they said, look we're open to any proposal at all," he said.
Mr Jeppesen said the divided park plan was dependent on the number of car parks that were required for the expanded shop and that detail was being put in the hands of a planner to go back to the council.
He said a "plan C" would mean that the B11 would be incorporated into the section of land where the larger Otway submarine stands, adjacent to the Commander Holbrook Memorial Park.
"The plan C, which they were also open to, means we would lose the existing park, which is not ideal, but it would be their responsibility to move the model into the same precinct and keep everything as a submarine area, so we're OK with that."
Mr Jeppesen said he believed the community was supportive of the store expansion and that he and his submariner colleagues were also not opposed to its development.
"We want the store to go ahead, and that won't go ahead if the expenses for it are too much, you know, in other words, if they've got to spend too much money," Mr Jeppesen said.
"If it works out that redeveloping the store is going to be too expensive, they said they're not Coles or Woolies with billions."
"But after the meeting, we now know that we can all work together to figure out a compromise everyone's happy with."
He said the B11 was "never was going to go to the Ten Creek Gardens Park which had been proposed by the Holbrook Lions Club".
Mr Dare was contacted by The Border Mail on Friday afternoon.
