RELATED: Drought funding committed
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Central Victorian shire mayors have broadly welcomed funding commitments made to the area on Wednesday by the Victorian government.
Loddon Shire mayor Neil Beattie said the announcement contained more detail than the previous announcement in November which would be “extremely useful”.
“The thing that really caught my eye was recreational water and sports grants because this whole area is extremely short of water, and we’re doing a whole lot of work on a pipeline project to try and fix it, but in the immediate term to get help to keep our recreation reserves for Summer sports is essential,” he said.
“And the new agriculture traineeships for school leavers, that’s a good incentive, that keeps our young people interested in farming, because when we do get out of this drought we need man power, we can’t afford to lose all our young people.”
Central Goldfields Shire mayor Geoff Lovett had not been briefed on the details of the funding on Wednesday, but said any new money would be very welcome.
“Throughout the shire we’re in pretty grim circumstances, it is really dry,” he said.
“We seem to be in a trough where we’re getting virtually no rain at all and a lot of the farmers are suffering, but also in the urban areas people are backing off water because things are so grim.”
Mr Lovett said the funding would be very much appreciated but wanted to familiarise himself with the details before commenting further.
“Whether there’s money available for some of the outlying towns in terms of recreational reserves or something to be done in areas like Dunnoly or Bealiba, it’s difficult without knowing the details,” he said.
“Usually when these announcements are made there are ties and commitments that come with them and till I have a look at the details I can’t really comment.”
Buloke Shire mayor Reid Mather said he would talk to councillors before commenting.
Meanwhile, Dingee dairy farmer Robert Condliffe welcomed the state government’s commitment to a stock containment areas program, but warned there was no quick fix.
“It’s going to take them a little while to implement it I’d imagine, that sort of stuff has been done in the past but not a lot,” he said.
“We’ve got reticulated water personally, but other people haven’t so they’ve got to come up with a way of doing it and obviously stock confinement is a way of doing it, but it takes a little while to get it done.
“Even if someone said ‘well there’s a certain amount of money’ it’s something you’ve got to get in place.”
Mr Condliffe said what the region needed more than anything was rain.
“Surprisingly an inch, inch and a half of rain falling in the right place and going into catchments might be handy,” he said.
“She’s still pretty tough out there.”