Bendigo town planner receives Queen's Birthday honour

ASSOCIATE Professor Trevor Budge has dedicated his working life to better town planning – and has been recognised among local Queen’s Birthday honours recipients for his achievements.Mr Budge, the faculty co-ordinator in urban planning and development at La Trobe University Bendigo, has a long and distinguished career in urban planning.He was made a member in the general division of the Order of Australia (AM) for service to town planning, particularly the development of regional and rural communities in Victoria, and to education.“I’m a bit amazed and humbled I think. It’s something that wasn’t on the radar screen,” Mr Budge said.“It’s good for the planning profession that people in that field can get recognised nationally, because sometimes you cop a bit of criticism and not everyone agrees with what’s been put forward.”As well as his academic work, Mr Budge was the inaugural chairman of the Planning for Health and Wellbeing project, Victorian Division; served from 2003 to 2009 as the Planning Institute of Australia’s Victorian president; has been chairman of the National Education Committee since 2006; and has been chairman of the Post Tsunami Reconstruction Project in Sri Lanka since 2004.Mr Budge has also served on a series of state government-appointed planning committees since 1992. He said there was little interest in regional planning when he started with then City of Bendigo in 1977.“I was talking to the city engineer at the time, and I asked if he thought there would ever be a need in the city for people with planning qualifications to undertake town-planning work, and he said he thought we’d never need that,” he said.“I think the council has got about 20 people now in planning. “When I first shifted to Bendigo, there were some people working in Albury-Wodonga, some people at Geelong and a guy at Warrnambool.”