With Yarrawonga one of regional Victoria’s fastest growing regional towns, updated infrastructure is required to keep up with the demand.
As reported in the Yarrawonga Chronicle last week, more than 2,500 new homes have been built in the past 20-plus years, and with more homes and two over-50s lifestyle villages on the horizon, hundreds of homes are soon to be added to that figure.
Currently, there are also three government-backed flagship projects under way in Yarrawonga valued at well over $25 million, including the Yarrawonga Library, Events and Performance Precinct, Yarrawonga Multisport Stadium and Yarrawonga Health’s new operating theatre and main entrance redevelopment.
But the big build from government coffers does not stop there for Yarrawonga Mulwala, with the federal government set to inject $200 million into the Thales-managed ammunition facility in Mulwala, bringing with it an expected 200 additional jobs.
Moira Shire Council CEO Matthew Morgan said the challenge of any community that is experiencing growth is how they look at the infrastructure that they have at the moment.
“We need to look at how we need to expand our infrastructure to cater to that growth in the future,” Mr Morgan said.
“I think when we look at Yarrawonga, we can certainly see that there’s some growing pains.
“We’ve got to understand how we have responsible support, responsible growth and what we need to do as a council to support that.
“To me, what the next few years embodies for council is looking at, is there a need for structure planning? And more particular, localised planning.
“For example, do we need to start looking at a streetscape plan for Belmore Street? And balance the growth of activities such as heavy vehicles and how that fits into longer term community aspirations.”
While there are many projects that are a hot topic of discussion around town that residents would like to see, Mr Morgan said that when the future is investigated, council categorise it as the need to haves and the nice to haves.
“I think there’s a lot of work that we’ll be doing, particularly around drainage and stormwater,” Mr Morgan said.
“When we look at the residential growth in particular and what that looks like over the next five to 10 years, there’ll need to be some pretty strong investment in stormwater and drainage infrastructure across the community.
“Then we look at activating community through spaces and programs and part of our role is around advocacy for services. But then we look at other projects that we’ve got into the community, like the library and town hall project and providing that space for the community.
“The multi-sport precinct is another key infrastructure project which will provide that space for the community as the community grows.
“We are also extending into the conversations which are active at the moment around the former primary school site and what role that site will play in the provision of infrastructure and space for the community moving forward as well.
“Aside from that, obviously we’ll have a role to play in advocacy, particularly around education, health and other essential services.
“When we tie back the infrastructure particularly, obviously the heavy vehicle situation and the bridge is quite topical. That’s another project that I think is going to be on our radar.”
Member for Ovens Valley Tim McCurdy weighed in on the desperate infrastructure needs in Yarrawonga which he said is “quickly becoming dated and no longer fit for purpose”.
“What is suitable for today may not be in five years,” Mr McCurdy said.
“The growth potential is huge, with tourism a thriving industry, along with a large agri sector, and the expansion of Thales in Mulwala providing more jobs in the manufacturing sectors.
“The new bridge remains a priority for Yarrawonga to open up revenue and trade over the border and ease congestion during busy periods.
“I continue to work with the Moira Shire Council on this issue to ensure that we lobby the government/s at every opportunity and remind them about the importance of getting a new bridge done quickly and properly.
“Further, upgrades are needed to existing utility infrastructure, with a full drainage plan and subsequent implementation for existing parts of Yarrawonga critical to ensuring sustainable growth into the future.
“I have also lobbied for the final upgrades to Yarrawonga College P-12 to be completed to ensure the public school system has room for new families moving into Yarrawonga over the next decade.
“As always, continued investment and upgrading of roads, pedestrian infrastructure, and service facilities will place Yarrawonga in an excellent position to become a thriving hub by the end of the decade, and one of Victoria’s ‘must-visit’ destinations.”
Yarrawonga’s two largest infrastructure builds that have been in the pipelines, planning and early build stages for a long while, the Library and Events Performance Precinct and the Multisport Stadium have remained infrastructure projects of contention around town.
The Yarrawonga Library, Events and Performance Precinct construction saw progress in late 2023 with Browns Project Solutions Director and Senior Project Manager of the library construction Jason Brown saying that all of the contractual matter was aligned, and construction of the underground services was commenced in November.
The project is split into three stages with the area between Burkes Hotel and the town hall the first to be built before stage two behind the town hall and stage three up to Hume Street are completed.
Yarrawonga’s second flagship project, the Yarrawonga Multisport Stadium, has seen a car park constructed and levelling works conducted, had its projected cost blown out by close to $7 million, pushing the total two-staged project cost to $16.5 million after tenders were sought. The first stage will progress soon expecting to cost $8-$10 million.
Capital works have also commenced on Yarrawonga Health’s new $10.8 million operating theatre and main entrance redevelopment project, expected to be finished in early 2025.
At Thales, the Federal Government has injected an extensive cash boost into the two local munitions manufacturing plants at Mulwala and Benalla, with the potential for up to 150 jobs at the Mulwala factory as the facilities expand.
Production will significantly boost industrial capacity through infrastructure redevelopment at both sites – ensuring each site is equipped to support future production demands.
“We’ll have an update coming back to council in March on the library and town hall precinct project,” Mr Morgan said.
“That’s an active project at the moment. So, what we will see over the next six months is a hive of activity, and that project is really starting to take full swing.
“I totally appreciate that that project’s been around since around 2015/16 when those conversations started, but I think we’re very much into the final phases in terms of delivery.
“It’ll come along quite quickly. With the multisport stadium again, that’s another priority project, and it's likely that we'll see around April or May, contracts in place.
“I would imagine that works can commence on-site early in the new financial year.
“We’re looking at a two-year horizon for these projects to be completed.
“The key thing in my experience, and I think that’s where we have just got to get these things right, is around the expectation with those projects and around engagement of the community throughout the life of those projects as well.”
As both the library and multisport stadium projects have had cost blowouts from their early predictions, Mr Morgan said council needs to have an eye on the relevance of the plans and expectations on all of their major projects as currently there are no cutbacks.
“Ultimately, that needs to be a global view of the affordability, not just to actually deliver the project, but also to maintain, operate, and run the assets right across the district,” Mr Morgan said.
“There’s no specific look at cutbacks at this point in time.
“We do need to have a responsible approach to that as we move forward.
“We’re pretty keen to see how we can partner with people so that council’s role is really around supporting and encouraging activation and providing appropriate infrastructure.
“There are ways that we can partner with people, not just in Yarrawonga, but right across the district to actually deliver an approach on how we will deliver projects.
“I think that’s one of the key things when we’re talking about community planning, and it's quite unique here because we've got the New South Wales/ Victoria border, but our community doesn’t see that border.
“So, if we’ve got infrastructure needs, we need to have that conversation with our neighbouring counterparts so that we’re not duplicating.
“We’ve got a memorandum of understanding between Moira, Indigo, Berrigan and Federation Councils where we meet and have these types of discussions.”
Housing and commercial infrastructure figures released to the Chronicle by Moira Shire Council last week revealed that, on average, 142 homes are being built in Yarrawonga each year, with an average of five commercial developments.
In 2023, 173 residential properties were built while six commercial properties were developed, numbers that continue to grow as more people move to the area.
“I think the demands of workers (in terms of large numbers of staff coming to work at Thales etc), creates stresses on housing supply. I guess the need for residential housing growth is quite real,” Mr Morgan said.
“So how do we support that? I guess with the critical mass of people comes the demand for services, infrastructure and public spaces.
“We've got to have a response in terms of how we grow those facilities and services apportionment to the growth in the population.”