Windsor Station: Australian Timetables Association’s fight to use empty building
A volunteer group which has collected transport timetables for almost 40 years in South Yarra could be derailed if it can’t find a new home.
Inner East
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A volunteer group which has collected more than 30,000 transport timetables is in limbo as they try to find a fitting new home.
The Australian Timetables Association, formed in 1983, is being forced out of its South Yarra base this month and want to move to an empty building at Windsor railway station.
The building is believed to have been empty for 20 years, and the group first applied to use the space to meet and work in September 2019.
But the group claims its requests have been continually handballed by the State Government, Metro Trains, VicTrack and real estate agents.
Archives officer Len Ragan said the group met weekly to chip away on sorting tens of thousands of train, bus, ferry and plane timetables for a State Library of Victoria archive.
He said the group, which has nearly 60 volunteers based in Victoria, feared they would have to spend “lots of money which we don’t really have” on storage if they couldn’t find a new home.
“All we’d be doing is occupying the building, there would be no external signage or changes to the exterior,” Mr Ragan said.
“We need a space to settle down, get this work done and get it into the State Library.
“It’s a perfect site for us and a perfect use of the building, so what is the purpose of the government not allowing it to be used?”
Prahran state Greens MP Sam Hibbins said he had raised the group’s plight in parliament and written to transport ministers Jacinta Allan and Ben Carroll on several occasions.
“We have a vacant building at Windsor Station, right in the heart of our community, yet when a community group applied to use it, all they have received in response is delays, dead ends and run-arounds,” he said.
“The government needs to get its act together and proactively ensure the building is put to community use.”
The Department of Transport has been contacted for comment.
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