'It's totally wrong': The battle between council and a retired real estate agent

Neville Richards is a retired (still licensed) real estate agent living in Ballarat. Now 81, he says he purchased the land with his development partner in the 1970s. The title document still bears Neville and his wife's Cynthia's names.

"We purchased that total acreage of land, which in those days was on the very outskirts of Wendouree, with the intention of securing a permit from the council to subdivide it," Mr Richards says.

At the time, Mr Richards says he was approached by several bodies with an interest in purchasing parcels of the Wendouree land, including the Country Roads Board (CRB), the Victorian Department of Education and Ballarat City Council.

"The council at that stage said, 'We'd like some of the land for recreation purposes; we understand the Education Department would like a piece of it, and the Country Roads Board for the mooted bypass road,' which was going to run along the northern boundary," he said.

Both the Country Roads Board and the Department of Education compulsorily acquired the land they requested: the CRB for a bypass (now Giot Drive) and the Education Department for Wendouree North (now Forest Street) Primary School.

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"When we purchased the land we weren't aware of all those things; and the council, when they were giving us a permit, made it known that was the case and then we negotiated with the council as to what they wanted, what the Education Department wanted in acreage at the time, and the CRB."

Mr Richards is quite adamant the land at 2a Ealing Street was never purchased by council, nor was it compulsorily acquired.

"In the last 12 or 18 months I took a call from Nevett Ford (now Nevetts Lawyers) ... acting on behalf of council, and we had given the council two blocks of land in Carpenter Street. They were still in our names, and (the lawyers) wanted them transferred to the council... we did, and the two blocks of land in Carpenter Street have now been built on - but there's been no mention about this land in Ealing Avenue.

"We had to give them that land for recreation purposes, so one would think it was up to the council to get it transferred into their name."

Mr Richards says he cannot recall signing any papers to transfer the land to council at any time; having been a real estate agent since he was 17, some 64 years, he says he's relatively familiar with how the transfer of land works.

He says the principle of giving up land which he and his partner had bought in good faith, and doing so happily in the knowledge it would become a public reserve, only to find council had reneged on the agreement and was set to profit from the sale of the land, was galling.

"It's totally wrong, totally wrong," Mr Richards said.

"If council were to sell this land, I would estimate there would be at least eight building blocks."

In a response to The Courier's request for evidence of The City of Ballarat's ownership of the land at Ealing Avenue, the following response was provided:

'Council data shows City of Ballarat has ownership of the parcel of land. Council is going through the process of having the formal title records amended to reflect its ownership and consider the future of the land. It is not unusual for public property ownership such as laneways and reserves not to have been updated following subdivision approvals.'

Council did not provide evidence of the data for ownership of the land at Ealing Avenue.

In a previous response, the City of Ballarat expressed its desire for the rezoning to go ahead so the reserve title could be removed and the land sold for housing

'This application is to remove the "reserve" status from the title of the land at 2a Ealing Avenue, Wendouree.

'This is because the land was rezoned to General Residential Zone in 2018 so Council could advertise the land for sale. However, a sale did not occur.

'There are no developer proposals for the land and Council remains the owner of the land. It is intended to hold an Expression of Interest or auction of the land at some stage in the future.'

The Courier approached Beveridge Williams Land Consultants, who are handling council's rezoning of Ealing Avenue, for a comment, but were referred back to City of Ballarat.

The Courier also approached Nevetts Lawyers for as comment on the Carpenter Street transfers. No-one was available to speak.

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