Council decided at meeting on Thursday to donate to the centre.

Cr Bruce Meyer said it was a project that council needed to support.

“When it comes to money for hospitals, there is an expectation for a community portion of funding to be met,” he said.

“That’s how it is with this cancer centre – the community has to provide the percentage of the money.

“This centre is for the whole of the Wimmera – I don’t see it as a Horsham project, it just happens to be in Horsham.

“Cancer has no boundaries and patients who use it will not have boundaries.

“People from right across the region will use this centre.

“It would be a terrible thing if we didn’t support this.”

Cr Meyer said council’s donation of $5000 was the same amount other Wimmera councils put towards the project.

“It’s the same amount of money that Yarriambiack and Hindmarsh councils donated and I’m happy to do what they did,” he said.

Cr Richard Wait said the centre would be important to everyone in the municipality.

“It’s a worthy contribution and while it would be nice to give a larger amount, we need to be responsible,” he said.

Cr Ron Hawkins said he would rather council gave $20,000.

“We are supporting a good initiative that will benefit everyone and $5000 seems a bit light – it will probably just put a few door knobs on,” he said.

“I would like to think we could demonstrate a stronger level of support.”

However, Cr Hawkins push for a larger donation was not supported by other councillors.

Mayor Annette Jones said it was an incredibly worthy project to support.

“Once it is up and running it will be a fantastic addition to health care in our community,” she said.