Council & Business
8 September, 2022
Stage two station works approved by Heritage Victoria
Stage two of the Maryborough Railway Station Activation Project will be underway before the end of the year, with upgrades to the local information centre and co-working spaces receiving approval from Heritage Victoria. Council recently lodged an...
Stage two of the Maryborough Railway Station Activation Project will be underway before the end of the year, with upgrades to the local information centre and co-working spaces receiving approval from Heritage Victoria.
Council recently lodged an application with Heritage Victoria for stage two, which will include refurbishment of the information centre’s interior, upgrades to the co-working spaces, the provision of artist studio spaces including for talks, exhibitions, classes and an artist hub, and with other refurbishment and upgrade works.
Central Goldfields Shire Council general manager infrastructure, assets and planning Matthew Irving said the stage two works were approved last week.
“We received an approved permit from Heritage Victoria last week which approves all the funded works we had scoped for stage two,” he said.
“There’s no concerns with delivering these aspects of the project.”
While the stage two works have now been approved, one element of the application that did not receive approval was plans for an external glazed enclosure.
The enclosure was proposed to run along the platform between the cafe and information centre to provide protection against the elements, and to provide a heated or cooled space when required with the potential to host temporary exhibitions.
Mr Irving said the glass enclosure plans were not part of the stage two upgrades and were an option council were exploring for future works.
“There were a couple of items we put in the permit application as exploratory items for future stages, which included the glass enclosure and some portals to assist in the interpretation of the heritage aspects of the railway station,” he said.
“At this point in time Heritage Victoria has refused those elements, on the proviso that they didn’t have enough information provided at this point in time, which we thought could be the case.
“We won’t be pursuing it straight away, we’ll look at that for potential future stages, right now we’ll be getting on with delivering stage two.”
The approved stage two part of the project has already received $1.8 million in State Government funding, with council contributing $200,000, and Mr Irving said this means works will begin before the end of the year.
“We’re on track to commence works before the end of the year, we’re in a tender evaluation process and that will be coming to a future council meeting very shortly for council’s consideration to award a contract,” he said.