That’s the view of one young Ballarat agent who has worked in other large selling centres, including Wagga, Wodonga and Naracoorte. The new voice in the ongoing controversy about whether RXL is meeting the demands of agents at the proposed Miners Rest facility, comes following three major agents said they lacked confidence in the project. With 20 years experience under his belt- the past 13 in Ballarat- Xavier Shanahan says he has become disillusioned at the misinformation circulated about the Miners Rest saleyards project.

“If we’re not careful we’ll lose the lot”, the 38 year-old Landmark auctioneer said. “If people think we can remain at the current site, and continue to place bandaids over its aging infrastructure until another white knight with more money comes along people are seriously mistaken. As agents and an industry we have a proposal we must seriously address. The Miners Rest location is suitable. Its access to roads is perfect and the site deemed satisfactory by the planning authorities We need to deal with the plans, the design concept and the actual running of future sales”.

Crunching the numbers Mr Shanahan believes the proposed plans offers sellers the same if not greater capacity than the current Latrobe Street complex. The yards are of a different design and things will need to operate differently he said.   They are more compact, more efficient which means any argument based on size becomes relevant.

In terms of the sheep yards, Mr Shanahan say his figures suggests lamb yardings of 46,000 head are possible on the first fill of the selling area. This includes 34,830 head being penned in 810 designated selling pens under the roof, with 11,520 head possible in 144 dual purpose yards in the uncovered delivery area. This capacity alone he says will accommodate 90pc of all yardings held in Ballarat but on the 10pc of other occasions a further 4320 lambs can be penned in 36- larger delivery yards, with room for 10,000 being stood in 53 receiving yards and nine drafting areas for re-penning. Mr Shanahan believes the cattle complex offers capacity to hold 4500 head on a first penning. This allocation he says is possible via 1200 head being penned in 56 receiving pens, 2800 head in the 140 designed selling pens, 550 head in 40 pens around the scales area.

At this rate every market except three during the past three years would have been accommodated. “Every saleyard, every year has its busy times and tight squeezes, and they manage”, he said. “We do several times each year in the current yards and we manage so what’s different?”.