Council put on notice

By Tania Martin
THE Macclesfield community will continue running the town hall but residents say they are putting the Shire of Yarra Ranges ‘on notice’ about maintenance concerns.
A meeting was held earlier this month to determine whether the running of the hall should be handed back to the shire.
The committee said it was thinking of handing the responsibility for the hire and cleaning of the hall back to the council as it was fed up with the shire’s lack of interest in maintaining the building.
However, the shire said it was surprised by the claim that the hall committee had not been supported by the council.
Hall curator Douglass Cordell said that the committee had called on the shire several times over the past two years to fix the hall’s guttering.
Mr Cordell, who called the town meeting, said that the main aim was to find out if the community was still interested in running the hall.
He said sufficient interest was shown by the local community at the meeting which voted to replace three of the retiring members of the committee.
Shire manager of community relations James Martin said the council welcomes the election of the new committee and looks forward to working with it.
However, Mr Cordell said this was only a short-term solution, as the committee had agreed to place the shire on notice until the end of this year.
“This means that the shire’s attitude towards their halls must improve in regards to maintenance,” he said.
But Mr Cordell said the committee would be monitoring its relationship with the shire until the end of this year when it will make a final decision on the future running of the hall.