Last night, Yarra Council heard public submissions on a proposal to sell Loughnan Hall.
We heard from local residents, passionate about keeping public assets in public hands, and the Greek Elderly Citizens Group who has been using the hall for more than 3 decades.
The proposal to sell the hall was endorsed in July 2010 without opposition from any councillors. The public consultation process is important in hearing from the community about any such proposal. We heard that last night.
The Greens support keeping public assets in public hands, especially in a municipality that is growing at the rate of Yarra, but using them to the maximum community benefit.
Loughnan Hall is a 1950s brick building in Coppin St Richmond, which is used by Greek and Italian senior citizens two or three times a week; for the rest of the week is usually vacant. It is about five minutes’ walk from Hosie St, another community hall used by a small group of senior citizens, an art group and the Yarra U3A, but again often not used. The U3A will soon move to another venue in Collingwood. Both halls are a stone’s throw from Richmond Town Hall. All 3 facilities could be used more effectively.
Loughnan Hall has seen better days. It has only a small domestic kitchen and no wheelchair-accessible toilets. Council has been discussing ways Hosie St could be upgraded to meet both the Loughnan Hall and Hosie St groups’ needs and provide them all with high-quality accommodation. This proposal to sell Loughnan Hall was to provide funds to build other infrastructure for which there is high demand. It is of course, not the only option.
The agenda for last night’s Council meeting contained some but not all the submissions received from the community about the proposed sale of Loughnan Hall. This meant we did not have the full picture on feedback from the people who had taken the time to write to us on this important matter.
The recommendation at the meeting was to accept the submissions, in order to consider them properly and come to an informed decision next month. Predictably, the Socialist Councillors proposed abandoning the sale, and keeping the hall “for community use”, but offered no solution to the obvious problem that the community is not currently using either hall fully (and both are in need of upgrading) while other parts of Richmond lack community halls, and there is high demand for other types of community facilities.
We Greens are very concerned that the Greek Seniors are very distressed and opposed to the proposal to move them to Hosie St. We acknowledge and share resident desires to retain useful public buildings in public hands. But we also wish to ensure these buildings are in top shape and used to the greatest community benefit.
We therefore voted against the knee-jerk proposal to abandon the sale this month. If we abandon the sale without an accompanying proposal for how to use both halls more fully, they will continue to lie empty for most of the week, and there will inevitably be another proposal in a couple of years’ time to sell one or both.
We need a proper, well thought-through and lasting solution that makes best use of Council assets, and provides our senior citizens groups with proper facilities. What we don’t need is posturing and populism.
