Lake Wendouree Ballarat lighting project: Work begins on installing lighting

Runners and rowers will benefit from a plan to light up Ballarat’s Lake Wendouree, but not everyone is a fan of the project.

Ballarat mayor Daniel Moloney and Member for Wendouree Juliana Addison with Loreto College students to mark the commencement of the Lake Wendouree lighting project.

Work will soon begin on lighting up Lake Wendouree following a long saga of bureaucratic delays and vocal criticism from certain corners of Ballarat.

The City of Ballarat’s lake lighting proposal has troubled some heritage advocates, who labelled it “overkill” and thought the Steve Moneghetti Track’s flora and fauna would be tarnished by the 225 light poles to be installed along the path.

The contract for the works was awarded in February this year and in April the local council had to apply for a heritage permit when the Heritage Council of Victoria made interim protection order.

Nevertheless, within the next few weeks, tree and electrical planning will take place, and in November, digging will begin if the ground conditions are right.

Ballarat mayor Daniel Moloney said the protection of trees was “of the utmost importance”.

“That really does follow a very detailed planning process working with an arborist who will be on site for most of the time as well,” he said.

“There’ll be barriers in place to protect trees and there’s a really detailed tree management plan that sits behind this.”

Underground boring will involve electrical conduits being laid 1m beneath the surface, which is meant to reduce any negative effect on tree roots.

A trial light pole on the track around Lake Wendouree in Ballarat.

There will also be seven poles installed on Morrison St to illuminate a path to Lake Wendouree from Victoria Park.

To make room for that route, five non-native trees have already been removed from Morrison St following an arborist’s finding they had long-term structural problems.

About broader criticism of the project, Cr Moloney said: “There was a Facebook group set up about a month after the approval process was already gone through, so it’s a bit hard to address any feedback that you’ve gone through about five or six years of consultation and then a group pops up afterwards and they didn’t like the outcome.

“I understand that there’ll be a couple of people that won’t be overly happy with that, but the overwhelming majority have told us that they wanted to see lake lighting … there’s a range of surveys that continue to prove the strength of that.”

He said he expected minimal disruptions for regular users of the lakeside trail.

“For many years people were telling us that they felt unsafe really walking around the lake as soon as night time fell,” Cr Moloney said.

“It’s really inhibited the ability for people to get out and enjoy probably one of Ballarat’s most important social areas.”

Wendouree state Labor MP Juliana Addison said the lights would benefit those exercising after sunset and Loreto College students who rise early for lake sports.

One Loreto student, a runner, said she looked forward to being able to walk her dogs at night.

She said the lights were important “so you can see where you’re going and know how far you’ve got left to run or not trip over anything.”

Ballarat resident Carmel Parker says lighting around Lake Wendouree will help during her regular jogs in the area.

Ballarat resident Carmel Parker said the project would provide more opportunities to be active around the lake in colder months.

“Lake Wendouree has a great track, but late in the evenings when it’s dark and early in the morning it can be challenging running,” she said.

“There’s a lot of tree roots or puddles that you can trip up, cause an injury possibly.

“I’m really excited for the Loreto community because it just means there’ll be safer access for longer periods of time.”

The lights will be entirely powered by renewable energy.

They will turn off at 10pm every night and on each morning at 5.30am.

The $3.17m project is funded by $2.5m from the state government and $670,000 from the City of Ballarat.

Works should be finished by mid-2023.