By Mikayla van Loon
The land at 150 Cambridge Road Kilsyth officially belongs to Yarra Ranges Council after the full purchase amount was paid earlier this week.
Councillors, council staff and community members gathered at the site on Tuesday 29 November to hear the news that the $6.44 million block of land had been purchased from the State government.
“We’ve been on a journey with 150 Cambridge Road for some time and we’ve had some pretty spirited conversations in the chamber but ladies and gentlemen, look what we’ve ended up with so I can confidently say it is ours now,” Mayor Jim Child said.
What began at a community meeting turned into an over 7000 signature petition submitted to the council and eventually got the council thinking about purchasing the land.
“We recognise normally a big one is something like 100 signatures…it was a phenomenal petition and just showed what the public wanted,” Walling Ward councillor Len Cox said.
“What we’ll get out of that is 3.6 hectares of land here and we will develop it into something that everybody in Kilsyth will be proud of.”
Cr Cox thanked all the people in the community who pushed and persevered to have this site saved, particularly John Phillips who was the initial campaigner.
“There’s no second chance for things like this so thank you for pushing us to keep us going with it,” he said.
This was echoed by fellow campaigner Shelley Large who said “without John and his wife, Carol we wouldn’t have had the fire in our belly to continue.”
While designs for the site are at least 12 to 18 months away, Yarra Ranges Council’s manager of recreation and parks Phil Murton said works will be getting underway shortly to make the space more usable and safe for the public.
The parks and bushlands team are ready and even in the next few days you’ll start seeing people in here just trying to tidy things up.
“We’re going to make it at a bit of a better level for us to be able to enjoy because we know the community are enjoying the space at the moment but also to make it a bit easier from a maintenance perspective.”
This will include things like rubbish removal, chipping of dead wood, minor weed control works, filling in some of the exposed pits and some other minor earthworks.
Mr Murton said 150 Cambridge Road will undergo a master planning process involving numerous community consultations like what happened with the Elizabeth Bridge Reserve.
“We will go out into the community and hear the community’s thoughts and wishes and long term vision for how this space can best be imagined,” he said.
Now the keys have been handed over to the council, work can officially begin on the planning works, which includes applying for external funding to contribute to the long term plan.
“What we’ve now got is this wonderful piece of land that doesn’t look all that flash at the moment but believe me, it will look flash and I think this is the most exciting thing I’ve seen the council get into since Lillydale Lake,” Cr Cox said.
The ribbons that became a feature of the site during the campaign are expected to be saved and used in some way by the council.
