FOLLOWING the recent release of the Southern Grampians Shire Council (SGSC) draft Small Towns Strategy (STS) and the invitation for community feedback on the document, residents of one of the towns covered in it have taken issue with multiple parts of it, one going so far as to call it “appallingly sloppy”, and another claiming parts were directly taken off Wikipedia.

The draft focuses on future services and infrastructure in Balmoral, Branxholme, Byaduk/North Byaduk, Cavendish, Coleraine, Dunkeld, Glenthompson, Penshurst and Tarrington.

Glenthompson residents have especially taken umbrage, gathering a long list of objections and corrections to the way the facilities and services in their town were presented, claiming the document had “basic errors of fact” in respect of matters as diverse as emergency services, road signage and public transport.

The Spectator was contacted directly by two residents who had made submissions to the Shire and felt the town was poorly treated in the STS, but considered it had broader negative implications for other small towns in the Shire too.

Local, Jenny Rankin said she was “gobsmacked” by the draft and the way Glenthompson was portrayed, especially with consideration to her own recent efforts to save their town pool from closure.

She said she was still angry about the Council’s intention for the pool being portrayed as an inevitability and called the offer to reduce the facility to merely a splash pool was “inappropriate”, claiming locals were of one mind on the subject.

“This idea has been refuted vociferously by the community at every meeting with Council since Council took over its management,” she said.

“We cannot swim laps, dive, play water games or sports, learn water safety or how to swim in a splash pad.”

She also issued a warning to other towns in the Shire, saying only Dunkeld’s pool appeared to receive a positive assessment.

Her lengthy submission commented on about 50 different points and slammed many as “untrue”, “redundant”, “irrelevant” or “unnecessary”.

When the draft was released recently, SGSC mayor and councillor David Robertson said the STS “highlights service and infrastructure communities would like to have, such as new open spaces and improvements to existing public buildings”.

He said other planning ideas raised by communities and documented in the strategy included utilising vacant heritage buildings, streetscaping, building walking tracks, access to public transport and improved waste management.

Cr Roberston said that the STS considered existing assets in each town, as well the distinctive challenges each community faced, with a view to “ensure small town residents have access to facilities and services necessary for liveability”.

SGSC acting chief executive, Rory Neeson, said the feedback already received from the Glenthompson residents “will be considered in due course” but wanted to emphasise the interim nature of the document.

“The Small Towns Strategy is still in draft, and we are currently out for public consultation,” he said.

“We are visiting the Glenthompson community next week, as we are all of our townships, to hear feedback on the draft strategy. We encourage all members of the community to read the document in full, alongside the summary documents and provide their feedback through this process.”

But Ms Rankin said her primary concern was with the overall framework of the STS and claimed it lacked a key ingredient, a function she believed reflected an urban-based thinking from the consulting firm engaged, Niche Planning Studio (NPS).

“There’s nothing in it about farming,” Ms Rankin said.

“But one farmer supports eight people here. The wrong people wrote it.”

Echoing this, Glenthompson farmer Leigh Heard said he too was perturbed by what appeared to be an “urban perspective” in the STS, ignoring the fact the “raison d’être for this district is agriculture”.

“If there’s no agriculture for some nuclear or governmental decree or reason, all the nine towns and Hamilton cease to exist,” he said.

“The real assets of this district that I think should be at least given a nod to if you’re analysing things is that we have got mostly level topography … but (also) the soil, the rainfall, the proximity to ports, the transport links - they’re assets.

“The other assets that are taken for granted (and) they talk about a negative (such as) being without sewerage reticulation.

“I’ve been on a septic (tank) all my life, you can live without sewerage reticulation, but you can’t live long without water reticulation.”

Mr Heard said it seemed the city-based consulting firm took certain services for granted that were common in urban areas but did not understand priorities in the country were different and this approach undermined the worth of the strategy.

He was also shocked one of the directors of NPS revealed to him she had stayed at an Airbnb during Sheepvention and had assessed the public green spaces as “poorly maintained” after a morning jog around Glenthompson.

“I said, ‘did you go jogging early in the morning when it was dark or did you jog with your eyes closed or something?’” Mr Heard said.

“(She said) ‘don’t be rude’ (and I said) ‘I’m not trying to be rude, but, really, you’ve stayed in the town and you’ve let all these things in the report that you have reviewed’.”

Both Mr Heard and Ms Rankin said the lone SGSC Council worker they have did an excellent job keeping public spaces well kempt and denied the STS claim.

Other issues both pointed out were the claim “trucks frequently U-turn in the middle of the Glenelg Highway as they miss the turn off to Ararat” (in fact, it appeared it was usually a truck company swapping prime movers out of Mt Gambier and Ballarat with the drivers heading back the way they came), “the town was poorly serviced by public transport” (two services daily and a community bus fortnightly to Hamilton), and emergency services were scant.

“We have ambulance and CFA in the town, SES and police 12 minutes away, and back-up ambulance, VicPol, SES and CFA in neighbouring towns, all within 20 minutes,” Ms Rankin countered.

“Limited? No!”

They also both refuted the STS claim that “residents have to travel 40 minutes by car to the nearest supermarket for fresh fruit and vegetables”.

“The nearest supermarkets are at Willaura and Lake Bolac - 20 minutes,” Mr Heard said.

“40 minutes … obviously refers to Hamilton or Ararat. Of course, you could always grow your own fresh fruit and veggies.”

Mr Heard said he was concerned to discover the STS at one stage required an extra $90,000 to complete and said he didn’t think it represented value for money, including copy-and-pasting historical information from an unreliable online source.

“We’ve paid multi tens of thousands of dollars for an urban consulting firm to get something out of Wikipedia - which is wrong,” he said.

“You (also) don’t have that cost for verifying – within Council bureaucracy – nonsense things like bus timetables saying we don’t have regular and consistent public transport.

“It’s pathetic. For my money, the report’s not worth the paper it’s written on.

“Everybody I’ve told has laughed.”

Mr Neeson said the development of the document “was budgeted for within the 2022-2023 financial year at a cost of $190,000” and defended its value.

“The Small Towns Strategy was developed based on several rounds of consultation with communities - including Glenthompson, which we visited in May last year - as well as through online engagement platforms and at Sheepvention,” he said.

“Initial consultation was also undertaken with service authorities, government agencies and local real estate agents, along with internal staff briefings, all which has informed the draft document.

“Over the last two decades, the Council has conducted various strategic planning work to guide the future growth and development of the Shire’s small towns and settlements.

“The information contained within the Small Towns Strategy conveys community concerns, issues or priorities raised either with Council or the consultants through the development process of this document or through previous strategic document development.”

Ms Rankin said she hoped residents in other small towns in the Shire would raise their voices about the STS.

The draft document and the SGSC Have Your Say website can be found at bit.ly/SG23small and feedback closes on Friday, December 15.