Stickers tell a story - Huntly residents log their experience at flood forum

The event seemed broadly successful, with many residents appreciative of the direct access to experts and the warmth and concern of councillors and staff, while City of Greater Bendigo personnel said valuable information was being collected.

However, many attendees had a "wait and see" attitude about the outcomes.

Following the three big rain storms of the past three and a half weeks, the City reportedly received over 700 flood-related reports or requests from around the municipality.

At Huntly on Wednesday, overhead maps that residents marked with colour coded stickers "[told] a story", CEO Andrew Cooney observed.

While it was too early to say whether problems such as blocked drains had contributed to flooding, the council accepted "people got flooded," Mr Cooney said.

"We're hearing stories about where the water came from.

"I think the key part is the water couldn't get away ... whether it was too much volume, whether there were blocks, whether the network needs some improvements - we accept the water couldn't get away like it had previously.

"You can see that today. We've had 20 or 30ml of rain out here, and a lot of those table drains are full again. So we've got to be able to find a way to get that water to the creek."

Property owners had also been reporting that "the creek's blocked, the tributaries are blocked, there's trees growing in areas that mean the water can't get through it," Mr Cooney said.

While the council might not be able to address everyone's concerns, the community event was about "gathering as much info as we can", connecting people to services and logging requests for remedial work, according to the CEO.

Mr Cooney was aware that many local people believed housing estates were creating or increasing floodwater in Huntly.

"We will work with that information," he said, while stressing that applications for housing developments in flood prone areas were subject to detailed investigations and strict requirements, which other agencies were also involved in.

The COGB's head of engineering, Brian Westley, who had driven down "nearly every street of Huntly" after the rain on Wednesday morning to assess known problem areas, said staff would "sit down and collate all the feedback" from the community hall event.

He had personally spoken to 12 groups of people and found the three biggest themes were "the size and the cleanliness of table drains, the adequacy of stormwater pipes, and the planning that goes into place for new developments".

But the significant flood projects the council had on the drawing board for the area were improvements to Racecourse Creek at Ascot and a section of the Bendigo Creek levee bank.

Mr Westley said the increasingly frequency and intensity of weather events was a challenge for all planning authorities.

The area had experienced flooding in 2010, 2016 and 2022, as well as 2024, but the planning formula used by most Victorian councils designated these events a 1 in 100 chance of occurring.

Debbie Dean, whose Gungurru Road house partially flooded on January 7, said she had been heartened by talking to a "brilliant" council engineer at the session.

"He told us what needs to be done to fix the problem," she said.

"He wrote everything down and I feel a bit more positive after talking to him."

However, her neighbour Rosemary Smith, was feeling less optimistic.

"I've got no confidence much is going to come from this once it all dies down," she said.

Several other attendees told the Advertiser they were waiting to see what happened after the forum.

Among them was Lindsay Sergeant, who founded a Huntly Epsom community flood group in 2011.

"It was reasonable, people gave you time," he said of Wednesday's event.

"But as always, the proof is in what comes out of it.

"We've been through all this before and it's all nice and rosy, then people go away and forget about it."

Kylie Ware, whose Midland Highway property flooded twice in a week this month said she and her partner, Mark, had been offered no answers.

"The ... engineer kept reminding us we are in a floodplain and that's where the water wants to go," she said.

"We are exhausted and disappointed. It's sad for us."

Flood sessions also held in Heathcote and Redesdale on Wednesday, saw 45 and 20 people, respectively, attend, according to the council.