McBride Avenue. Artist's illustration. Source: Wonthaggi Activity Centre Plan
By Frank Coldebella
SO THE Wonthaggi Club is opposing a plan to make the bottom block of McBride Avenue more pedestrian friendly.
With respect, I don’t think the liquor and gambling industry should be telling us how to use our public space.
There is ample parking within 200m of the club. People are not going to give up playing the pokies because they have to walk from Graham or Murray Street.
SO THE Wonthaggi Club is opposing a plan to make the bottom block of McBride Avenue more pedestrian friendly.
With respect, I don’t think the liquor and gambling industry should be telling us how to use our public space.
There is ample parking within 200m of the club. People are not going to give up playing the pokies because they have to walk from Graham or Murray Street.
The Wonthaggi Activity Centre Plan proposes to remove parking on the western side of McBride Avenue and widen the pavement to form an outdoor dining and erntertainment precinct. Councillors will vote on the plan at their next meeting.
Bring it on, I say. This central public space is too valuable to be used to park cars. If I had my way, I’d close the street to vehicles altogether, but this is a reasonable compromise.
Bring it on, I say. This central public space is too valuable to be used to park cars. If I had my way, I’d close the street to vehicles altogether, but this is a reasonable compromise.
| The plan went through a pretty rigorous process to identify the best use of public space. It comes after almost three years of consultation. For some years now the idea of removing traffic from the northern end of McBride Avenue and using the space for something better has been talked around. The scare campaign against pedestrian precincts isn’t based on any rational data. There is a myth that people aren’t going to buy stuff if they can’t park out the front. Whenever malls or pedestrian strips are proposed, traders object, then reality sets in. It’s the number of wallets that pass shop windows that matter, not the number of cars. Clearly people hanging around in front of a place are more likely to spend something than if they’re driving past. One or two retailers might move out but the food businesses will move in. Once there are people eating on the street, and food smells wafting around, more customers are attracted. There is ample parking in and around Wonthaggi. Sure you might not be able to park directly outside the shop you’re visiting, but that luxury is disappearing anyway with Wonthaggi so much busier these days. With studies showing most of us not getting enough exercise perhaps we should learn to embrace the walk to the shops. Wonthaggi has recently been identified as a peri-urban centre with huge growth predictions. With some 10,000 new residents expected in the next few years, how do we preserve its small-town culture, pace, heart and soul? |  Wonthaggi has:
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Wonthaggi’s sense of identity has its roots in a co-operative inclusive camp that welcomed newcomers and their ideas. In the tradition of the miners’ camps, seating and plants should be portable to cater for the various activities of organisations and clubs. You need diversity and interactions with people you don’t normally associate with. And that needs a meeting place.
For most of the 1900s, McBride Avenue was a meeting place, particularly on Friday night (late night shopping) and Saturday morning (when the shops closed at noon at the sound of the hooter). In a pre-digital version of FaceTime, two people would stop to chat; others would join in, some would leave, more would join.
For most of the 1900s, McBride Avenue was a meeting place, particularly on Friday night (late night shopping) and Saturday morning (when the shops closed at noon at the sound of the hooter). In a pre-digital version of FaceTime, two people would stop to chat; others would join in, some would leave, more would join.
Bonds corner, looking south on McBride Avenue, Wonthaggi, on a Saturday morning in the early 1970s. Photo: Frank Coldebella Often the street was closed for concerts and other events. In the town’s heyday of political activism a soapbox outside the Whalebone Hotel denoted a speakers’ corner where issues were explained, debated and refined.
With support from the council, the street was closed off with pallets and bales over a long weekend in 2018 to create a trial mall. Local musicians and singers performed despite the cold wind. People sat around and talked.
The two-day trial was used to gather opinions and ideas and instigate numerous discussions. What would a Wonthaggi version of a platz, or place, or town square, look like? How do we create a space and atmosphere where our residents can hang out and interact at various times?
Many people would never dream of visiting an art gallery but imagine if the art was all around them in a public space, sparking ideas that lead to a more civil society. A mixture of creative arts leads to cross pollination of ideas and give new perspectives.
Imagine buskers, singers, musicians, jugglers, dancers, pavement artists. Imagine a place where a kid could take out a guitar and put down a hat and make a few dollars playing for passers by. Imagine a place where the local footy team could gather before the grand final or a school choir perform on a Saturday morning.
Imagine a restful oasis at the heart of town.
Councillors will vote whether to adopt the Wonthaggi Activity Centre Plan and Access and Movement Study at their next council meeting on April 21.