Colbinabbin Place Based Plan - community hub

The Colbinabbin Town Recreation Reserve hosted a forum on Thursday 9 May 2024 to canvass the community’s view on the development of a Community Hub at the recreation reserve.

The concept of a community hub is as a result of feedback obtained as part of both the development of the Colbinabbin Place Based Plan (PBP) as well as the recently completed 2023-33 Recreation Reserve master plan, both of which were endorsed by the Campaspe Shire Council in July 2023.

The forum focussed on the commonality regarding the need and desire for a multi-use community hub as the existing Rec Reserve facilities no longer adequately cater for the needs of current nor future users.

This situation currently restricts access and has limitations such as no unisex, accessible or female change facilities, lack of family friendly design, disjointed social rooms and inadequate catering kitchens etc. There is a strong desire to support the future sustainability of all current sporting clubs as well as attract further recreational and social opportunities.

Hence to bring the facilities up to the level expected by not only the community but also state sporting associations, it is proposed that a new multi-purpose facility is constructed.

The working party composed of Dean Wallace, Tait Hamilton, Anne McEvoy and Tim Hill visited other pavilions, considered site options, developed a design scope for the hub and focussed on the vision of creating a social hub. This aligns with the Colbo PBP vision of ‘Our strong spirit and innovative thinking creates a vibrant and welcoming place for our community to thrive.’

The fifty-five attendees at the forum provided overwhelming support for a new community hub with the draft concept designs displayed to provide context to the preliminary sketches which were generously drafted courtesy of Dale Denham of Denham Design.

The concept hub building would be placed on the eastern side of the oval which would encapsulate all sporting groups in the one venue. The designs were displayed at the Forum to visually portray various views and angles which provided attendees with a great talking point and pleasingly provided vast enthusiasm and showed community commitment to achieve this vision.

There are numerous next steps in this journey with the next stage requiring funding for further development design work which would require the Shire to tender for. The working party are now advocating for this step to proceed and will provide further updates as required.

The Working party thanks Dale for his support of the project thus far along with a magnificent community attendance at the first of numerous further forums.