Hamish Heard
A Highton businessman has won a green light to open a restaurant on the top floor of a redeveloped angling club building at Torquay’s Fisherman’s Beach.
Great Ocean Road Coast Committee executive officer David Clarke said the organisation was not ready to announce who had won the right to open the restaurant but restaurateur Richard Verrell confirmed he had been chosen.
The restaurant will crown a new $1.5 million building also housing Torquay Angling Club, the town’s marine rescue service, a meeting room and viewing decks.
Mr Verrell is well known in the region’s hospitality industry as a co-owner of Barwon Heads restaurant At The Heads, Newtown’s Barwon Edge and Portarlington’s Grand Hotel.
He told the Independent he planned to open a relaxed venue with high-quality food and a family-friendly atmosphere for the prime waterfront site.
“It will be very much along the same lines as the other places I’m running,” he said.
But Mr Verrell was evasive when quizzed on the length of the lease he had secured on the taxpayer-funded building, saying the details were “private”.
Torquay councillor Ron Humphrey said the coast committee’s process of selecting the winning tender had been shrouded in secrecy.
“I spoke to a developer who made an expression of interest in the restaurant and I understand he offered GORCC an extremely substantial contribution toward the total cost of the entire redevelopment but was quickly shown the door,” Cr Humphrey said.
The coast committee was seeking further funding from council to complete the redevelopment, he said.
But Mr Clarke said the process was transparent.
“I don’t want to respond to any more ridiculous comments made by Ron,” he said.
“If that person had applied he would have been assessed along with every other applicant.
“The tender was advertised publicly and expressions of interest were assessed by a panel and other experts and they were whittled down the way they should have been.”