THE location of Bendigo's Anzac Day services is still up in the air, with the RSL and City of Greater Bendigo yet to find a compromise under the COVID-19 restrictions.
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Bendigo District RSL Sub Branch president Peter Swandale said the association met with city representatives on Friday.
"The key thing is their concern with the amount of people coming to watch, particularly at the Bendigo service in town," Mr Swandale said.
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"Under the current DHHS rules, we can only have 1000 people come along and watch. We're indicating that's not achievable because it's all about the community being involved.
"If we're expecting more than 1000, we will need to put up fences. We will need quite a bit of money to achieve that fencing."
Mr Swandale said other services at Eaglehawk, Kangaroo Flat, and Huntly were given the green light due to the smaller crowd expectations.
Premier Daniel Andrews last month confirmed Melbourne's Anzac Day services would be "as close to normal as possible".
Mr Swandale said both the City of Greater Bendigo and the Bendigo RSL would contact their Melbourne counterparts to see how they were accommodating larger crowds.
Mr Swandale said the RSL and the city were meeting again on Monday night.
"We're going to see if we can reach an agreement," he said. "We have to make a decision this week because we can't leave it too late. The aim is to enable our veterans to participate in a service."
Mr Swandale said the Bendigo RSL was also considering a plan to host the Anzac Day services and march at the Bendigo Jockey Club.
"It does have a history," he said. "It was a staffing camp for World War I and World War II.
"Also, because it's on private land, it comes under slightly different rules. By having it there, we could have it protected by fences and it would be ticketed.
"We could apply to go to a tier two event, which would mean we could have up to 5000 people. The Jockey Club would have the capacity outside to achieve that.
"We're thinking we'll get about 2000 people. Normally we have well over 5000 people but we think that number would reduce this year."
Mr Swandale said regardless of what happened with the Bendigo services, people should still honour Anzac Day this year.
"There is nothing stopping the community from paying their respects by laying a poppy at the Soldiers Memorial Institute," Mr Swandale said.
"The services will also be broadcast online so we would also encourage those who can't come to jump online."
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