Corangamite Shire Council grants $5m for Port Campbell Town Centre Revitalisation Project
A popular seaside town along the Great Ocean Rd that attracts visitors from all over the world is in line for a huge $15m upgrade. See the plans here.
Warrnambool
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A popular seaside town along the Great Ocean Rd close to The 12 Apostles will receive a huge $15m upgrade, in a bid to encourage tourists to spend more time in the town.
Port Campbell, which was crowned as "Australia's Most Welcoming Town" earlier this year, will get a huge facelift as part of a council town centre revitalisation project.
Highlights include:
– Timber decking lookout and picnic areas under the Norfolk Pines
– A wider main road than first planned to cater for professional fishermen
– 90 degree parking has been retained and foreshore traffic remains two-way
– Alfresco dining on the foreshore
– Fisho and surfer’s carpark remains the same
– New street furniture and bike racks
– New lawn areas, garden beds and trees
– Integrated art by Vicki Couzens
– Bus parking moved to Lord Street, opposite the tennis courts
– Foreshore amphitheatre
– More car parks
At a Corangamite Shire Council meeting this month, the council awarded the $5.15m contract for the 2023 works to Warrnambool company Civilnow, with the overall project estimated to cost $15.6m.
The facelift for the coastal town includes pavement and concreting works, electrical works, artwork installations, drainage, asphalting and landscaping along Port Campbell’s foreshore, a near Lord St and the town’s centre, south of Cairns Street under the Norfolk Pines and towards the Fisherman’s car park.
Works to the central Lord St area will happen throughout the winter season in 2024.
“Hopefully we can push out and get a bit more done if it’s all going well,” Coastal Ward councillor Jamie Vogels said.
“When national and international tourism comes back to pre-Covid levels, the improvements will encourage visitors to take more time to experience the town, its shops and natural attractions safely on foot.
“It will also be great for the growing number of families and cyclists visiting town due to the Twelve Apostles Trail.”
The project is funded jointly by council, with $6m from the state government’s regional infrastructure fund and $5.6m from the federal government’s building better regions fund.
Cr Vogels said the landmark decision had been “a long time coming”.
“At $15.6m this is the largest single project council has ever done,” he said.
The council released the tender in December 2021 but received no responses due to Covid, market conditions and workforce shortages.
Mr Vogels said the project was exciting to get underway as there were a lot of “hurdles” with Covid interfering with the process, as well as a lack of supplies, materials and concrete for the project.
“When it went out for contract the first time, no one put in for it,” he said.
“So they rescoped it all and we had three put in this time.
“The two bits that will be kicking off and the most exciting parts of it is the redo of the foreshore and under the Norfolk Pines with some decking — making it accessible and family friendly.”
Cr Vogels believed a lot of the benefits for the streetscape will be the “inevitable” increase in tourism for the town.
“It deals better with tourists for locals — and it will have a good focus on the local community instead of just a tourism focus so it can work in well together,” Mr Vogels said.
He said he hopes to get ideas soon for the integrated artworks that artist Vicki Couzens will be doing to “kick it off” in July this year.
“We also hope to have this section finished up before Christmas so it doesn’t impact the holidays,” Mr Vogels added.
“Because it is a tourist town and there’s a lot of businesses down there, we are trying to get a lot of works done outside of peak tourism times and then shut the project down for tourism times and then open up again after that,” he said.
“It should be a few years in the making — but it should work well for all the businesses and the locals as well as the benefits of tourism.
“We get a lot of tourists through — we just need to try and get them to spend a dollar while they’re down there I suppose — we need the economic benefit not just the people.”
Mr Vogels said him and the team are looking forward to seeing it all come together.
“We’re just all pretty happy and we’re really lucky to have the team we’ve got in the background in the engine room — who have kept it rolling along and been able to adapt on the fly to changing conditions so it’s very handy,” he said.
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