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COUNT THE CARAVAN COMPETITION 20 DOUBLE PASSES
TO THE OUTDOOR LIVING & CAMPING EXPO TO BE WON
No 1:1775
WEDNESDAY, JULY 30, 2025
2025
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TATURA MILK STAFF SUPPORT FOOD DRIVE PAGE 2
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Page 18 + 19
INSIDE: ■ Education partnership providing opportunities | page 10 + 11 ■ Letters to the Editor | page 15 ■ Classifieds | page 16+17 ■ SEN - Shepparton’s Home of Sport | page 20
Shepparton sets the agenda for 2026 By Deanne Jeffers WITH fewer than 500 days until the state election, Greater Shepparton City Council is ramping up advocacy with its Victorian Government Priorities 2025/26 document, outlining key projects it wants funded. Mayor Shane Sali said the early launch was about being proactive ahead of the 2026 budget and election. The six priorities include: funding for the Shepparton Sports and Events Centre, major road upgrades including a second river crossing, improvements to GV Health, a full bus network review, support to manage water buybacks, and a new infrastructure fund for regional Continued Page 13 projects.
What will be the fate of KidsTown?
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ADVENTURE PLAYGROUND... Beloved playground, KidsTown, has been in decline for several years, with rumours that it will be permanently closed by Greater Shepparton City Council. Mooroopna Community Plan Steering Group’s chairperson, Rowan Farren (pictured), is one of many locals who don’t want to see the site abandoned. Photo: Aaron Cordy
By Aaron Cordy ONCE rated as the sixth best adventure park and playground in Victoria by Time Out magazine in 2020, Mooroopna’s KidsTown is now a shell of the “place to have some serious fun.” Built in 1995 as a community project before being taken over by GSCC in 2005, KidsTown was known as the largest
adventure playground in Australia and one of the premier attractions in the region. With regular events and holiday programs for children and the trains, the playground holds many great memories for 1000s of children, parents and grandparents locally and a lot further afield. Today, KidsTown has taped-off sections and broken, rusted and damaged equipment
in every part of the park, mould on the shade sails and the beloved trains have not worked since the October 2022 floods. The floods are the easy scapegoat for KidsTown’s current state, but any regular visitor to the playground leading up to October 2022 could tell you that there were sections already taped off and the park was Continued Page 6 already in decline.
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