Planning for the project is in the preliminary stages, with the group seeking government support to help with the planning process.

Green Hill Lake Development Board member Morrie Allgood said the group decided to go ahead with the walkway on Thursday, June 30.

"We are really excited for this to go ahead," he said.

"We have committed $10,000 to it at this stage and we are trying to get some money from the government to help design it and decide where it is going to go.

"If we can get that to get proper plans, we would be able to apply for bigger grants to get this project started."

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The development board has approached Ararat Council for permission to proceed with the project.

"The Council is the managers of the land out there, we need their permission to go ahead with it and we need their help in obtaining grants," Mr. Allgood said.

"We have written a letter to them and we hope to hear back in the next week."

The development committee has still planned to incorporate small boardwalks where necessary.

'We are only in the initial first stages at the moment, that's for sure," Mr. Allgood said.

"There will be some small areas of the boardwalk where we have to put in bridges, other than that it will be more of a path.

"It is not going to be a boardwalk, we are talking about putting a walk right around the lake rather than a boardwalk across the lake."

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Mr. Allgood said the group wanted to include community input when designing the walkway.

"We hope to get bike riders and walking groups involved to get their ideas," he said.

"The plan is to make it wide enough so it is a walking and cycling track.

"We want it to be accessible to everyone."

Mr. Allgood said plenty of work would need to be done before the walkway was built.

"We are now looking at building up the earth enough so it is above water level around the edges of the lake," he said.

"We will have to still have several places where water can still enter the lake, we could incorporate the boardwalks there."

Mr. Allgood said the plans changed with the boardwalk due to the costs involved.

"The boardwalk was going to be that expensive and we were having trouble finding people to design it," he said.

"We couldn't get exact numbers but we imagine it was going to be very expensive.

"It would have been nearly a kilometer of boardwalk and you can imagine how much that would have cost to build across the water."

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