Trustees of the Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial believe they have been 'blindsided' by the officer report recommending the City of Ballarat not support the development of an interpretive centre at the Botanical Gardens site.
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In an item to be heard at this Wednesday night's council meeting, councillors will vote on whether or not council will support the construction of an interpretive centre and toilets in the southern part of the Ballarat Botanical Gardens, adjacent to the Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial.
The recommendation, if carried, also states that consideration may be given should the trustees of the Australia Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial identify alternative locations that are outside of the Botanical Gardens or surrounds.
According to the officer's report, a Prisoners of War Story Centre was one of 13 projects proposed to be included in the Lake Wendouree Masterplan, but was considered unsuitable given its proposed location in the South Gardens impacting on open space.
In 2019, council received a response from the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning regarding the proposed interpretive centre, in which Heritage Victoria maintained similar concerns as the masterplan.
The council officer report states the heritage value of the proposed location is the key factor in the recommendation.
"Even without the masterplan, an assessment of a proposal such as this would be unlikely to be approved," the report says.
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"This is based on the strength of the specific comments in the Heritage Victoria statement of significance for the Ballarat Botanical Gardens that states the areas north, and in this case, the south of the main gardens forms a critical buffer both in spatial and visual terms and any buildings would disrupt this view."
Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial trustee Bill Bahr said he was shocked to see the recommendation in the council meeting agenda.
"We're going to try and defer it because it's inaccurate and, honestly, we've been blindsided by council, simple as that," he said.
"If it can't be within the gardens, that's like having an interpretive centre for the begonias stuck up at Vic Park where there's no begonias or the tramways museum being up at Vic Park when the trams run around Lake Wendouree.
"I just think that the report to council is flawed and you can't get a vote on a flawed document. It makes an absolute joke of what council's all about."
Mr Bahr said the memorial was one of eight national memorials outside of Canberra and an interpretive centre would only increase its tourism value.
"You only have to look at the Bendigo museum, which has quite a large military component of it, but they get thousands of visitors a day there. The interventive centre down in Phillip Island for the Vietnam veterans, they get visitors annually of between 20,000 and 30,000," he said.
"An interpretive centre is actually for people to go in there from an educational point of view, sit at a computer terminal, log into whatever they need to log into relation to prisoner of war search, because since our memorial was built, there's been hundreds and hundreds of other sites that have come into play that have allowed people to do more searches and the Boer War is one of them.
"What's on the wall isn't the end of it, because it does contribute to the education processes of not only Ballarat people, but people from North Queensland have been down on school excursions, the University of Hawaii has been here, we've had countless schools coming from Victoria and New South Wales."
City of Ballarat chief executive Evan King said council was happy to continue to work with the trustees around alternate options for an interpretive centre.
"It's about the gardens, it's about the green space, it's about the best use for it and if we continue to build on it, then we continue to erode that open green space," he said.
"It's a very important part of Ballarat, the Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial is unique, it's important and the recommendation to council isn't devaluing the importance of the memorial at all, we just don't believe that's the right location for a building of that sort of significance."
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