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Wheely good effort NORTHE APPEALS PAGE 2
Moe’s Albert Street Primary School combined with local Rotary last week, raising money for wheelchairs to help disadvantaged kids.The school held wheelchair races as part of the fundraiser, with Prep student Noah among those eagerly taking part. STORY - PAGE 15
Photograph: Katrina Brandon
Fanciful facility By LIAM DURKIN
PEOPLE might want to think again when they claim “Traralgon gets everything”. More than three years on from the devastating floods that left the Traralgon Recreation Reserve a muddied mess, the biggest town in the Latrobe Valley is still waiting for an upgraded facility to help deliver some of the most popular sports in the region. The waiting game looks set to continue, as the project currently carries a budget of $6.5 million. “We’ve only got $6.5 million to deal with, so until we know how much it’s going to cost to build, we won’t know whether it’s going to proceed or not,” Traralgon Football-Netball Club president, Kevin Foley told the Express. The project is for a multi-use pavilion at the recreation reserve that will be built above flood levels, with facilities to primarily accommodate Traralgon FNC,
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was located in a separate building pre-flood, will take up space in the new changeroom facility. Storage has also decreased, while the practicality of trying to cram multiple football and netball teams under one roof has been called into question. Unfortunately for Traralgon, the situation is looming as a case of ‘take it or leave it’, as Mr Foley explained. “We’ve been able to come to some arrangements to include some extra space that we would require, certainly not enough storage and probably not enough public toilets, but we’re at a stage where we think we’ve got to accept that or lose it,” he said. Mr Foley did however acknowledge there were some positives in the proposal. “The one that we think is a good one is that the netball and footy rooms are sideby-side and (there is an) interconnected trainer’s room, so women don’t need to go through the men’s changeroom to go to
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Ex Students Cricket Club and Traralgon Boxing Club. It is understood design plans will see more changerooms fitted into the same amount of floor space of both the current home and visitors changerooms, and will do away with the current second storey above the existing Traralgon FNC changerooms. The facility is expected to be raised 1.5 metres, around the same height as ‘the Deck’ (social rooms) situated along the forward flank of the oval. A project reference group, taking in representatives from the abovementioned clubs, as well as Sport and Recreation Victoria, Latrobe City Council Officers and two Latrobe City Councillors have been working behind the scenes. However, some members of the reference group have been vocal in their opposition to a number of items. The Traralgon FNC canteen, which has operated out of a food truck and
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the changeroom, for home and away, so we think that will be a winner,” he said. Traralgon’s netballers have been operating out of a virtual tin shed for the past three decades, and according to the club’s president, have “well and truly earnt the need for better facilities”. On the football side, the Maroons’ home changerooms are still operating well below standard, while visiting teams are into the third season of using portable rooms. Despite some exceptional on-field results (Traralgon has still managed to play finals and win premierships across the grades in the past two years), Mr Foley said battle fatigue had well and truly set in. “Some of our long-time supporters and workers are getting pretty sick of it now,” he said, looking visibly exhausted. “June 2021 is when we had the floods, we certainly need some action.” Continued - Page 21
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