By Hugh Pearson
Eastern Victoria MP Harriet Shing and Bass MP Jordan Crugnale were in Lang Lang on Wednesday 23 November to announce a $10 million investment into Victoria’s little towns.
The Labor Party will provide regional local grants of between $5000 and $10,000 if re-elected at this year’s state election.
“We know that towns of up to 5000 people across Victoria provide the most wonderful colour, history, stories and sense of communities,” Ms Shing said.
“It’s therefore of central importance we provide them with support and opportunities to shine.”
Grants will be available to community groups, local organisations and councils.
“You might have a mothers group to come together and go this is what they’d like here and they can apply or councils can as well. It’s a great fund and it’s great for our small towns,” Ms Crugnale said.
Councils available for funding include Casey, Cardinia, Hume, Melton, Mitchell, Mornington Peninsula, Nillumbik, Whittlesea, Wyndham, Wyndham and the Yarra Ranges.
The funding will help support tourism in small regional towns and back local jobs and businesses, the government said.
Funding will be used for tourism drawcards such as splash parks, hiking trails and basketball courts.
“It might be streetscapes and murals, it might be a splash park, it might be street furniture such as benches or opportunities for people to come together and catch up,” Ms Shing said.
“We want our small towns to be a draw card and a focal point as well for people that might be travelling elsewhere,” Ms Crugnale said.
The $10 million funding won’t be competing with council funding arrangements.
“We want to make sure we are helping our communities to shine in all sorts of all different ways and that applications for State Government funding won’t be dislodged or disrupted as a result of this program,” Ms Shing Said.
“We will be guided by our tiny towns as to how they want to put their applications together, the sort of things that are important to them and continue to work alongside councils on the bigger projects.”
The Liberal National Coalition announced in October that Kooweerup and Lang Lang would benefit from $200,000 in funding each if they won the state election, for local projects. The commitment from the Coalition was part of the $30 million Local Shopping Strip Recovery Plan, which would support local communities across the state to recover and rebuild, the Coalition said.
