Leongatha to hold weekly prime, store markets following Pakenham saleyards closure

The Victorian Livestock Exchange will begin running two sales a week when the Pakenham saleyards closes its doors later this year.

Leongatha will assert its authority as the biggest saleyard in Victoria and rival Australia’s biggest yards later this year as it soaks up numbers when Pakenham closes.

The Victorian Livestock Exchange, which operates both the Pakenham and Leongatha yards, is planning to run not only weekly prime sales but weekly store sales.

Leongatha’s prime sale will be moved from Wednesdays to Tuesdays, which means it will clash with the Wodonga prime sale. It will then move its store sales from Fridays to Thursdays.

In the 2022/2023 financial year, Leongatha saleyards yarded 127,241 cattle or 16.1 per cent of Victoria’s offerings while Wodonga sold 14.1 per cent, Mortlake 13.6 per cent and Pakenham 11.7 per cent.

VLE managing director Brian Paynter said Leongatha could soon challenge Roma in Queensland as Australia’s biggest cattle saleyard.

He confirmed the Pakenham yards would officially close on June 30, with the final sale a store fixture scheduled for June 27.

Mr Paynter said there was a master plan for the Leongatha yards which involved more holding pens, given that some stock would now be travelling further.

Alex Scott and Staff agent Alan Bolding from Leongatha said some cattle which were normally sold at Pakenham would now have to travel further.

“It’s going to be a fair hike and those which were already travelling to get to Pakenham will now have to travel that extra 80 kilometres,” Mr Bolding said.

“It is certainly going to put a lot more trucks on the road, not only to bring the cattle here but to take the cattle away again.”

Leongatha cattle sale, VLE, Leongatha. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

Mr Bolding said it would make little difference to agents on which day the sale was held, but by switching from Wednesday to Tuesday, other centres may in turn change their sale days so as not to clash.

“Having two sales a week, every week, will be a big job but we can handle it,” he said.

“The saleyards at Leongatha are putting in holding yards where cattle can be fed and watered, and that’s essential as some will be coming long distances now.”

Meanwhile, the Victorian Farmers Federation branches of Peninsula, Cardinia, Bass Coast and

Warragul have called for a meeting with VLE executives to discuss the closure of the Pakenham yards.

In a letter to VLE, the VFF branches said they were “shocked and disappointed” to hear of the proposal that the yards would close.

They also raised the issue of increased road traffic if stock were forced to be diverted from Pakenham to Leongatha when the yards close later this year.

“The South Gippsland Highway is not well suited to the proposed significantly increased livestock freight traffic to Leongatha saleyards,” the letter said.

“Livestock producers will be faced with greatly increased transport costs to Leongatha, and

processors similarly will incur increased transport to places west of Leongatha.”