THE Mount Alexander Shire Council is refusing to back down from a decision to charge the Castlemaine Country Women's Association for room rental.
The CWA branch has been told it must cough up more than $2500 if it wants to continue using the Ray Bradfield rooms for meetings and events.
The CWA says the new charges are way out of its reach and claims the group handed its original clubroom over to council in 1996 in exchange for a guarantee it could use the Ray Bradfield rooms free of charge.
The CWA is calling on council to honour its promise, but Mayor Janet Cropley says there is no written documentation of the alleged agreement.
"Those actions were taken by a previous council and previous administration," she said.
"There might be a mythology of an agreement but I don't think it's worth anything.
"I don't know that their original building wasn't a council building anyway -- we can't find anything in writing.
"The world changes and the way you use things changes and council reserves the right to do that."
Ms Cropley said the room rental charges were not unreasonable.
"I don't think they've had a raw deal at all," she said.
"At the end of the day they are talking about using rate payers assets.
"It's not a reasonable thing that one group out of hundreds of groups that do wonderful things can use the facility without contribution.
"That's just not acceptable.
"There is nothing special about the CWA."
More in tomorrow's Bendigo Advertiser.
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