Trail not dead, just ‘long-term’ back on track

Andrew Mathieson
Parks Victoria has denied it scrapped plans for a continuous walking trail linking Geelong and Barwon Heads.
The department’s strategic relations manager, former Geelong-based MP Elaine Carbines, said the state pre-election promise was now a “long-term goal”.
Labor Member for South Barwon Michael Crutchfield announced last month that the Barwon River Parklands project would have “loop trails” and “key access points” instead of a continuous trail.
Consultations last year had identified the trails and access points as “a higher priority”, he said.
Mr Crutchfield’s Liberal challenger, Geelong councillor Andrew Katos, said the announcement meant the Government had broken its promise to develop a 30-kilometre river trail.
Ms Carbines said the walking trail plan was far from dead in the water.
“The linking of these parks via a continuous shared use trail remains the long-term goal,” she said.
Mrs Carbines said the community had driven the parklands project’s new priorities.
“During an extensive community consultation process in mid-2009, four continuous trail concepts plus a number of potential sites that would be suitable for the creation of loop experiences and visitor nodes were presented to the community for feedback,” she said.
More than 150 residents had attended a forum on the parklands project, while the consultation process returned 117 surveys and five written submissions.
A Parks Victoria spokesperson told the Independent the trail was a part of a “bigger picture” of addressing environmental concerns along the river.
The Government would not draw up plans for the trail before this year’s election, the spokesperson said.
However, planning had already identified loop trails and work was underway on access points.