Whittlesea councillors show up, approve town centre

The long-delayed Mernda Town Centre has been given the green light and final plans for an aquatic centre have been narrowed down to two. But is a lap pool part of the plans?

Work on the Mernda Town Centre has been given the green light while plans for the Mernda Aquatic Centre are being finalised.

Approval of the plans for the 24.9ha town centre, which will include a retail precinct with Woolworths and Coles, food and drink businesses, a medical centre, car and bicycle parking and a pedestrian area linking to the Mernda railway station finally went through after enough Whittlesea councillors attended a meeting to approve plans last night.

They had been delayed at three previous meetings because not enough councillors turned up.

Two options for the Mernda Aquatic Centre, one proposing a $48.7 million centre including an eight-lane 25m pool, and a $47.4 million option with a 200sq m teaching pool were flagged by councillors for further consideration at the meeting last night.

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Councillors Ricky Kirkham, Caz Monteleone, Alahna Desiato, Emilia Sterjova, Sam Alessi, Lawrie Cox, Stevan Kozmevski, Kris Pavlidis and Tom Joseph attended the meeting.

Cr Norm Kelly is on leave until March and Cr Mary Lalios submitted an apology.

Woolworths has owned the town centre site since 2008.

Whittlesea Cr Ricky Kirkham wanted more public consultation on the Mernda Town Centre.

The town centre will join other new developments in the area including the Mernda Junction Shopping Centre which opened last week and Bunnings Warehouse which opened last December.

The Mernda Junction shopping centre. Picture: Ellen Smith

It is not known when works will commence.

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