The City of Greater Bendigo will tomorrow unveil plans for a new playground in Eaglehawk, including a space in honour of murdered baby Zayden Veal-Whitting.
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The playground, which will be built beside Lake Neangar, is being touted as the largest to be ever built in the local government area.
A price of tag of $1.3 million is attached to the project, $800,000 of which was pledged by the council in its 2017-18 budget papers.
Local community groups have also stumped up $120,000 towards the playground’s construction.
Groups to contribute cash towards the build include: Empowering Eaglehawk; Borough Club; Eaglehawk Rotary; Eaglehawk UFS Dispensary; Bendigo Regional YMCA; Y Service Club of Eaglehawk; Eaglehawk Lions Club; Bendigo Bank; and the Family and Friends of Baby Zayden Veal-Whitting.
Part of the space to be called Where Angels Play will stand in memory of baby Zayden, who was killed in his cot in the early hours of June 15, 2012.
Harley Hicks was committing a series of burglaries when he entered Zayden's home and bludgeoned him to death with a home-made baton.
Hicks was found guilty of Zayden's murder by a Supreme Court jury and sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 32 years. Hicks was refused leave to appeal his sentence.
Zayden’s family told the Bendigo Advertiser in 2014 the playground would be a happy space that soothed their sadness.
“We think this is a good way for people to remember Zayden by,'' his aunt, Angie Whitting, said at the time.
"It's so nobody forgets him, but also for his brother Xavier to have a happy place to go and remember his little brother.''
Concept designs on display at a family fun day in March suggested the playground would have a distinctly literary feel, referencing moments from classic Australian books and poems.
Eaglehawk’s own Mulga Bill, a character of popular bush poet Banjo Patterson, appears to feature heavily.
The image of an eagle also looks to have informed the design.