21 Nov 2017 Moorabool News, Moorabool (General News) by Kate Taylor Newly elected Mayor Paul Tatchell has outlined his vision for Moorabool over the next 12-months. And as far as his focus goes, its all about laying the foundations for future growth. I wont be cutting ribbons, my role is to concentrate on long term infrastructure, Mayor Tatchell told the Moorabool News. He said that a key part of that will be attracting funding and support for Moorabool as it grows, particularly as population growth continues to spread into the shire. Decentralisation is a key point for Moorabool weve got higher growth than Ballarat and Melbourne, in practical terms, so weve become a key point in decentralisation and now its a matter of making sure we have the infrastructure to support that, and manage it better. We have the highest growth, and the least amount of funding. And thats with some fairly healthy input from the feds in the past couple of years. but it certainly didnt lay the foundations for decentralisation, or the peri-urban nature of the Moorabool shire. But there will be no silver bullet solution, even with more opportunities for government funding as anticipated in the lead-up to the state and federal elections. The solution will, however, involve surrounding shires working together to cross electoral boundaries. We need to get rid of the invisible fences, and start acting like a region. The first part of that is the Parwan precinct so that we have an employment zone the second part is to make sure that the sewerage program for Wallace, Dunnstown and Bungaree gives us the ability to grow them sustainably. The people in those towns shop in Ballarat, visit Ballarat, their kids will go to school in Ballarat. I just want Ballarat to wake up and consider that if they want to be the capital of Victorias country towns they should put in money and advocacy, I want them to support that, because its in their interests as well as ours. We want to have a grownup conversation with the City of Ballarat about their responsibility to the region and the future. And if they dont want to talk then I will, and I wont shut up. Another focus of his term as Mayor will be bringing motorsport to Fiskville, after the closure of the Sandown track opened up an opportunity for a new facility to be built at the now-dormant former CFA training Fiskville site. We know that they budgeted $80 million to clean up Fiskville, and we know that it costs $50 million to $60 million to build a motorsport facility so build it and clean Fiskville up at the same time, bring in the money and the jobs and do for Moorabool what Eastern Creek did for the regional area of Sydney. Im into practical common sense, Im not into pipe dreams. Caption Text: Mayor Paul Tatchell. Licensed by Copyright Agency. You may only copy or communicate this work with a licence.