Alice Matthiesson, Gold Camp Castlemaine
Much has been written about the Camp Reserve project in recent months, even years. But there has been little focus on the origin of the unease in the community. However, a recent request for the meeting minutes, and annual returns of the Camp Reserve Community Asset Committee, the committee of management for the reserve, reveals much.
The committee is supposed to hold annual elections, advertised to the public, with nominations to be reviewed by council, in an open public process. Public elections appear never to have happened.
The committee is supposed to advertise its general meetings, held monthly, so that members of the public can join, but this public process has also apparently not happened.
What has happened, is that elections have been held without a public process, and apparently in private. On occasion, councillors of the shire have acted as chair, in private sessions, even though the meetings and elections are required to be public by law.
This has meant that the committee has not had broad representation. These end users of the proposed facilities are also the only real beneficiaries of any redevelopment.
The poor planning process began with the decision in 2020, to discard the 2019 consultant master plan recommendations for the site, and instead adopt the council-derived master plan, a master plan sourced in the Camp Reserve Community Asset Committee. That decision was not made in the broader public interest.
The process to procure the current design and the planning permit for the new works has been distorted by a failure to observe basic principles of governance. The Camp Reserve Community Asset Committee should be dissolved, pending an enquiry, and the planning permit for the reserve should be withdrawn.
How the shire has reached this point should also be reviewed, because the best interests of the town are not being served by those currently seeking to adopt the current permit.
This is not how Castlemaine should do business, with a lack of transparency, probity and immersed in apparent failures of basic good governance.
So many people agree, and that is why hundreds turned out to the public meetings to explore alternative designs for Camp Reserve. We all deserve so much better, and so do the many future generations who will inherit these works.