Deloraine pump track for kids at a standstill, say proponents

Sharon Webb

PROPONENTS OF a pump track for kids and teenagers on Deloraine’s Alveston Drive say they are bewildered about the project’s future because after they presented designs to the Meander Valley Council, council bosses have gone silent.

Project leader Fayth Drury, a 20 year-old Deloraine aged care worker, said the town’s young people were disappointed, especially when they heard about the recent launch of the West Tamar pump track.

‘After we got the initial plans for the pump track we were so excited. It was all going so well’, she said.

‘We’ve asked the general manager and councillors to meet us but they said no. They just didn’t want to hear from us.’

A letter from the general manager John Jordan indicates the proposed pump track location appears mysteriously to have changed from Alveston Drive to the Deloraine racecourse. That location was never discussed with the proponents and they firmly disagree with it.

Questioned by the Gazette about the future of the proposal, council general manager John Jordan has pointed out his January council meeting reply to a question from resident, Harry Schrepfer.

‘The council has received the design of the pump track for Alveston Drive but is yet to consider the final location for the pump track with both Alveston Drive and the former race track precinct at Deloraine being possibilities’, Mr Jordan said.

‘As designed, the pump track will be more expensive than the council anticipated. A construction budget has yet to be allocated and will be considered as a possible project in the budget for 2021-22.

‘Consultation with the community about the design and location is likely to occur after funding is secured.’

However Deloraine Lions secretary, Ted Carter, who is helping the young people on the project, reinforced Ms Drury’s comments.

‘I’ve been told privately by someone at the council that the general manager was going to quash the project’, Mr Carter said.

‘In a meeting last year I asked him point blank whether there was opposition to the project. He gave me the impression it would go ahead.

‘We got a letter giving the impression the general manager wanted to locate the football club near the community complex and we would go to the racecourse.’

But project leaders oppose the racecourse location, which currently is so neglected it looks like wasteland.

They say it is prone to flooding, too isolated for young kids who would use the track for training and too close to the river for families.

The Alveston Drive location is surrounded by about a dozen houses and accessible to schools.

It’s believed the communication mess is caused by the recent turnover of council staff.

‘As long as Vicki Jordan was there we got regular updates but at this stage we haven’t heard from the council since well before Christmas’, Mr Carter said.

The mayor Wayne Johnston did not respond to an email on the issue and Cllr John Temple said he had heard nothing about the pump track.

‘So much in this municipality seems to disappear without trace’, he said.