Victorian town of Rupanyup determined to save itself

SUFFERING from stagnating population growth that could shut down the local supermarket and ultimately the whole town, the proactive residents of Rupanyup set about saving themselves and drawing visitors back to their pocket of Victoria.

THE welcome sign at the edge of wheatbelt Rupanyup declares it’s a “town with pulse”.

There’s no doubt that the pulse comes from the people - its heart - who’ve survived droughts, floods and plagues.

But the real battle in the bush was not the making of Mother Nature, it was a stagnating population that looked as if it could shut the local supermarket and then the whole town with it.

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Faced with “the final straw”, the town set about saving itself.

“A long time ago we realised that we couldn’t wait for someone else to fix our problems,” third-generation local David Matthews said.

The community bought the run-down supermarket and, thinking big in a small town, planned to build a new one in a million-dollar piazza.

Rupanyup locals are determined to make the town a better place and have banded together to buy the local supermarket to keep it running. Picture: Jason Edwards

They admit it might not stack up against Italian standards - “they’ve had 2000 years more experience than us” - but it will become home to the town’s first bakery in four decades and a new pharmacy after a fire relegated the current one to a temporary building.

It’s a bush build-it-and-they-will-come approach to offer more, draw families and drive up population.

“We want people who come to live, work and play with us to have amenities,” Mr Matthews said.

“Ask for a flat white in Rupanyup and locals will reach for the Black and Gold but we want to create a town where one day visitors can order a deconstructed soy latte.

“We might roll our eyes at you but we’ll still be able to provide it.”

The piazza project is not the first time the western Victorian town, 50km from Horsham, pioneered a new idea.

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The shopping strip in Rupanyup that locals are determined to revitalise. Picture: Jason Edwards

Rupanyup was the first to open a community bank in 1998, and has seen hundreds of others pop up across the country since.

It is now using $200,000 in community bank profits, as well as $500,000 from the state government and $100,000 from both the local council and federal government, to fund the piazza.

So confident it is onto a winner, the town will cover the rest in low-interest loans taken out by its community company, Enterprise Rupanyup.

It is this commitment and can-do attitude that has small towns across the country watching, some in envy and others in hope, but chairman Malcolm Uhe insists they aren’t anything special.

It is just “personal commitment among a lot of people”, he explains.

“There’s nothing unique about Rupanyup that makes it different from other little towns but it is where we are, it is our town.”

Mayor Graeme Massey has no doubt though: “They are survivors.”

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@moniquehore