Front page news: June 27-July 3, 2007-2015
A snapshot of news from across the years
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June 29, 2007: The region’s pubs and gaming venues are bracing themselves for new no smoking laws to be introduced on Sunday.
From Sunday, smoking will be banned in all enclosed licensed premises, gaming rooms and some outdoor or drinking areas in the region and across the state.
Licensees are expecting patronage to fall initially.
‘‘In the short term we expect people to be a little uncertain,’’ Tory Johnson of the Leopold Hotel in Ararat said.
‘‘You’d lose maybe 10 or 20 per cent, but in the long term we’d expect to get that back and maybe even improve upon it.’’
The ban on smoking in licensed venues is the latest law introduced by the State Government to address the exposure of people to second hand smoke (or passive smoking).
Health Minister Bronwyn Pike said smoking bans were part of the government’s plan to make Victoria a healthy state in which to live, work and do business.
July 3, 2007: Work on the $6 million 24 hour Caltex Service Centre on the outskirts of Ararat is underway.
Owner of the site, Melbourne company Milemaker, develops and retails service centres, with 32 across the state.
The site, on what was formerly known as the Tarara Truck Stop, will include a roadhouse restaurant for highway travellers and truck drivers as well as a truckies’ lounge.
The service station will accommodate fuel bays for 16 vehicles and six trucks and the entire development will cover an area of five acres.
Director of Milemaker Nick Andrianakos said there weren’t any modern facilities for trucks between Ballan and Adelaide.
July 1, 2008: With the assistance of the Ararat Regional Business Association, Willaura businesses are optimistic of weathering the storm of the economic downturn facing small towns.
Small town businesses across the region are facing difficult times, but the Willaura business community is adopting a pro-active approach to the current situation.
The Willaura business community has been invited to form a chapter of the Ararat Regional Business Association for a period of 12 months.
A group of business owners recently contacted Ararat Rural City Council asking for advice and assistance and a meeting was held with council and ARBA representatives.
July 3, 2009: Wild weather with wind gusts of up to 100 kilometres per hour on Tuesday saw many roads blocked across the Ararat region due to tree damage, but fortunately no major property damage occurred.
Ararat State Emergency Service unit, Ararat Rural City Council and VicRoads crews were kept busy late Tuesday afternoon and into the evening after the storms hit early afternoon.
Hail and heavy rain showers were also thrown into the mix, which along with the strong gusts of wind made for a dangerous combination.
Despite the wild weather only 8.2 millimetres of rain was recorded to 9am on Wednesday morning in Ararat and a further 7.2mm to 9am yesterday.
The storms also caused widespread power outages, with around 1000 customers off supply in the north of Ararat on Tuesday afternoon.
July 2, 2010: A former Ararat Rural City Council mayor is extremely concerned that ratepayers aren’t fully aware of the impact of the new Differential Rating Strategy.
The strategy was adopted at the May meeting and since then has attracted the outrage of former mayors, councillors and ratepayers.
More than 25 people packed council chambers at the June meeting to show their concern for the way in which the strategy will disadvantage those people in the municipality who own lower valued homes.
While the introduction of the strategy will see a reduction in the farm differential from 0.70 to 0.45 and consequently a reduction in the farm rate, it will conversely mean those with a home valued at $100,000 will receive a rate increase of 30.5 percent over the three year phase in period, which also includes a phased-in municipal charge.
Fay Hull, a former mayor of Ararat Rural City, voiced her concern over the introduction of the strategy after returning from an extended holiday and reading about the rating strategy in the Ararat Advertiser.
‘‘To me it rewards the wealthy and slugs the little person,’’ she said.
July 1, 2011: Following a summer dealing with the effects of floods, farmers south of Ararat are now facing another problem exacerbated by the wet summer - an infestation of slugs which are decimating newly sown crops.
Lake Bolac’s Gorst Rural agronomist Cam Conboy estimates 10 to 15 percent of crops south of the ranges including around the Tatyoon and Lake Bolac areas have been wiped out by slugs.
“The slug problem is horrific - I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.
“Whereas the rest of the country’s being plagued by mice and snails, we’ve got slugs. Slugs are doing so much more damage.”
The slugs have primarily attacked canola crops at the seedling stage, but have also made an impact on cereal crops.
July 3, 2012: Ararat Rural City Council has slammed the State Government for withdrawing funding for the Ararat Prison and Langi Kal Kal Prison Landmate Program, which has carried out thousands of dollars of valuable environmental and community work across the region over the past 20 years.
Council and other community stakeholders were informed last week by regional Landcare facilitator/Landmate co-ordinator Bob Wallace that due to the recent cuts in funding by the State Government, Landmate crews would no longer be available for environmental work.
As of Sunday they were stood down indefinitely, however, discussions are continuing with the prisons to determine whether the work crews can be maintained to honour work that has already been allocated.
When contacted by The Ararat Advertiser, the Department of Sustainability and Environment was unable to shed any light on the decision.
“DSE is currently involved in talks with the Department of Justice on the future management of the Landmate program,” a spokesperson said.
“It’s not possible to comment in detail until those talks have concluded.”
June 28, 2013: In a surprise move, Ararat Rural City Council has moved to reduce the rate increase in the 2013/2014 budget from seven percent to six percent.
In its draft Budget, Council had proposed to raise the rates by seven percent, which caused an outcry in the community, both in letters to the editor in The Ararat Advertiser and in the form of 19 submissions to Ararat Rural City Council.
A special meeting of council was held two weeks ago to consider submissions to the draft Budget and to listen to those who had requested they be able to speak to their submissions.
Rural ratepayers and farmers Peter Oddie, Noel Barr and Bruce McKay all spoke to their submissions, slamming Council for increasing the rates by seven percent and the farm differential rate to 60 percent of the general rate.
On Tuesday Cr Gary Hull moved that the rate increase be adjusted to six percent in lieu of seven percent and the budget be recalculated to cater for this adjustment.
June 27, 2014: The first of three Trade Training Centres in the Ararat-Stawell region has been officially opened at Marian College, six years after the idea was first tabled.
Marian College principal John Crowley said the state-of-the-art university standard laboratory, which will allow Marian College to offer Cert 3 Lab Skills and Cert 2 Viticulture, will provide students with valuable skills as they head into the workforce.
“The facility allows the school to provide high level qualifications and hands-on learning to students which they can then take those skills into particular areas,” he said.
“What it will mean is that we will be able to offer our students the opportunity to train at a high level of industry training to prepare them to go out into the workforce and use those skills in a wide variety of areas including mining, allied health and also the local wine industry.”
July 1, 2014: Ararat and Stawell have both been named among the nation’s top ten most affordable regional suburbs in Australia for houses.
The RP Data rankings are based on median house values as of January 2014, and to feature a suburb must have had at least 100 sales over the past year.
Ararat came in at number nine on the rankings with a median sale price of $165,000.
In the 12 months to January 129 houses were sold in the Ararat area after spending an average of 117 days on the market.
Ararat Rural City Councillor, Gwenda Allgood welcomed the report and said it was evidence the region has a lot to offer potential home buyers.
“That really is something that we’ve been talking about for some time to people from outside the region, particularly those from the metropolitan areas, that if you come to Ararat you can get a very good price for your house and you can enjoy your holidays by living in a wonderful area with fantastic views and spend the rest of the money, which you are saving, within our community,” she said.
July 3, 2015: The announcement last week that the RES Australia 75 turbine Ararat Wind Farm has finally received the green light to proceed was welcomed by Ararat Rural City Council, which believes the project will inject around $40 million into the Ararat community over the two-year construction period.
The $450 million project will be the third largest wind farm in Australia and will employ around 165 people directly during the construction phase while also benefiting financially 42 landholders.
Ararat Rural City Mayor Cr Paul Hooper said it was great news that the go-ahead had finally been given for the wind farm construction.
"It's great news, from an economic activity point of view, from an employment point of view, and for the landowners out there it's very important," Cr Hooper said.
"I've spoken to a couple and they're going to use the income from these towers to enable them to bring their sons back, who are working in Melbourne, and put in a succession plan so the next generation can take over the farm.
“These things (wind towers) provide a reliable, steady income."