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Community and Cobram pony club in fight over Muckatah Recreation Reserve access

A small patch of land in Muckatah in Victoria’s north has divided a small community, with mudslinging, claims of harassment and bullying from both sides. Here’s how it has played out.

Chris Hennessy at the locked front gates of the Muckatah Recreation Reserve.
Chris Hennessy at the locked front gates of the Muckatah Recreation Reserve.

THERE’S a lot of muck in Muckatah.

The battle for access to the Muckatah Recreation Reserve by the Cobram district community has evolved at times into abusive mudslinging, claims of harassment and bullying from both sides, legal threats and now a Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal case.

Alleged heavy-handed tactics by the former Muckatah Recreation Reserve committee of management saw the government reserve and buildings within it padlocked and access strictly controlled.

The committee of management has been run for a number of years by the Cobram and District Pony Club executive, led by Barbra Clarke, of Yarroweyah.

Years of complaints over governance at the C&DPC prompted state peak body Pony Club Victoria to disaffiliate the club last June, only to see it become registered with another horse association, Equestrian Victoria.

Local residents believe that was a move by a small group to maintain control of the pony club in a bid to claim ownership of the physical assets of the reserve — most of which have been made possible through public donations and government and community grants.

The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning replaced the former Muckatah Recreation Reserve committee in September last year with a focus on skills-based members. However, the C&DPC still controls the site courtesy of a 10-year licence they gave themselves in 2016 when they controlled the reserve committee.

The pony club committee holds the keys to the locks on key facilities at the reserve.

Further, Ms Clarke and C&DPC president Tony Johnston have taken the new MRR committee to VCAT in a bid to get exclusive use of the equestrian facilities at the reserve or be able to remove them.

RESERVING RIGHTS

THE Muckatah Recreation Reserve is a 40-hectare public reserve about halfway between Cobram and Katamatite in northern Victoria, set aside for public use in 1884.

It fell under the jurisdiction of successive government departments, the latest being the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning.

The reserve was once home to a racecourse in the 1960s but with the demise of country race meetings, it became home to the Cobram and District Pony Club, a riding and dressage club.

It had three fenced pony riding arenas, a clubhouse, toilets and a large tract of open land which, until recently, had been covered in weeds.

Keep out: The toilet block at the Muckatah Recreation Reserve.
Keep out: The toilet block at the Muckatah Recreation Reserve.

The reserve was also where the air ambulance landed to medivac out injured or seriously ill Cobram district residents.

The Muckatah Recreation Reserve has been managed by community members for decades and was once also home to a gun club, a hunt club and a darts club.

The recreation reserve committee of management and the C&DPC have been inextricably linked for six or seven years until 2019.

The reserve’s committee was then run by a group dominated by the executive of the pony club, whose then president was Ms Clarke.

Local residents have complained the committee was not interested in community use but all about control.

The reserve’s gates were padlocked, along with the toilets, three pony arenas and the shed which formed the C&DPC’s clubrooms.

A note at the reserve.
A note at the reserve.

Former MRR committee chairman Chris Hennessey said the gun, hunt and darts clubs left the reserve some years ago as a result of an “unfriendly attitude to everyone” by the pony club’s committee.

Mr Hennessey said relations became frayed when the riding club rode in front of the gun club while they were shooting one day.

It ended up with the gun club leaving the reserve. “I am a local saddler and farrier and was always connected to the place,” Mr Hennessey said.

“But I resigned over stuff the pony club was doing.

“Five padlocks were placed on the main gate, despite the Government Gazette saying the reserve had to be open between sunrise and sunset.”

Mr Hennessey said the C&DPC was a thriving pony club when he was chief instructor 18 years ago, with about 96 young riders.

But that had dwindled to its current level of 11 members, although Mr Johnston claimed the membership was 40-50.

LOCKED UP

FOR the past two or three years, local residents have been trying to eject the C&DPC executive off the recreation committee and replace them with others.

They also wanted to regain control of the pony club.

Local resident Donna Irvine said the club did not have good governance.

Pony club members appealed to Pony Club Victoria to disaffiliate the club, which it did on June 30 last year.

Pony Club Victoria chief executive officer Rick Gill said there had been more complaints about the C&DPC than any other club in the state.

“The club did not exhibit good pony club values,” Mr Gill said.

A community meeting was held in the Cobram library on July 4, 2019, with about 60 people attending.

Various attendees told The Weekly Times the language from the pony club executive’s supporters was so appalling, one woman marched out with her children in disgust.

“The major word at the meeting was ‘f---’,” Mr Hennessey said.

Mr Gill was one of those appalled.

“I have never seen a group of adults act so despicably in my whole life,” he said.

“We had to abandon the meeting without any resolution.”

Mr Johnston said he was not at the meeting but had not received any complaints about conduct at the meeting.

“We would take action against people that may have stepped over the line,” he said.

But he said his executive had been bullied and harassed by people in the community.

Since DELWP put a new recreation reserve committee in place last September, Ms Clarke’s group has refused to hand over the keys to the buildings and pony club arenas on the reserve.

Ms Irvine sheets the blame back to DELWP.

“The day they put a new reserve committee in place, DELWP should have cut the locks on the shed (clubrooms) and arenas and replaced them,” she said.

New MRR committee chairwoman Amanda Herezo said the C&DPC was in breach of its licence by prohibiting access to other users to the reserve. Ms Herezo said Scouts and Cubs and two equestrian clubs wanted access to the site but they had to wait until VCAT handed down its ruling.

Ms Clarke and Mr Johnston said they took the VCAT action to protect assets built up by the pony club in their designated areas under the reserve’s rules. “These are our trade fixtures,” Ms Clarke said.

“People can use our stuff but they still have to contact us.

“We will have broken poles and stuff stolen if we let people go on it (the pony arenas) at their free will.”

About a month ago, an anonymous complaint was made to the Environment Protection Authority about lead contamination.

Locals were not surprised about lead contamination, given that it had been used as a firing range for the gun club, but were suspicious about the timing of the complaint and who made it.

Ms Irvine saw it as “another roadblock so no one can use the reserve”.

“You wouldn’t believe 40 hectares of land in the bush could be a giant web of spitefulness,” she said.

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Original URL: https://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/victoria/community-and-cobram-pony-club-in-fight-over-muckatah-recreation-reserve-access/news-story/2297828e8e47977e03d935100a1b505c