July 1st, 2025Just sayin’…

I think it’s time to address the elephants in the room. No, not my drinking, or Kyle’s obsession with potholes. It’s two white elephants. Or what could become white elephants.
(From our friends at Wikipedia: A white elephant is a possession that its owner cannot dispose of without extreme difficulty, and whose cost, particularly that of maintenance, is out of proportion to its usefulness. In modern usage, it is a metaphor used to describe an object, construction project, scheme, business venture, facility, etc. considered expensive but without equivalent utility or value relative to its capital (acquisition) and/or operational (maintenance) costs.)
The first is the “hub” at the site of the Daylesford Town Hall – with a projected cost of $15-$20 million
Now I personally love the word hub because it was on one of my favourite ABC TV shows, Utopia. It is an Australian comedy series that follows the working lives of a team in the fictional Nation Building Authority, a newly created government organisation. The series explores the collision between bureaucracy and grand ambitions. Hello The Rex – which was going to be called the Hepburn Hub.
The council’s latest incarnation of the hub will cost, as I said, about $15 to $20 million. But as we all know the shire is broke. Like looking under the couch cushions for loose change broke. So why the pretence of being able to afford this new hub?
And even if it is all smoke and mirrors, maybe to look like we are still going strong, why would you spend $375,000 on even more feasibility/consultancy studies – as provided for in this most recent budget. Good grief. Just stop.
And then there is the timeline offered for our enjoyment on the now titled Daylesford Community Facilities – a project investigating the potential of a community hub at Daylesford Town Hall.
Apparently in 2013, 53 per cent of respondents nominated the Daylesford Town Hall as their preferred site for future community facilities. Hmmm. Then the council bought The Rex instead.
As we know, The Rex turned into a disaster, but after selling it at a loss in 2022 the council then resolved to conduct a planning project that would review possible solutions for staffing accommodation and community facilities.
And in 2023/24 attention returned to the town hall and the council resolved to endorse the feasibility of locating a library and multi-purpose spaces on the site of the town hall and for officers to proceed with the schematic design.
Now the design is in progress, see one of the artist images below, and delivers on the scope to provide a library and multi-purpose spaces. Backstage and customer service facilities have also been incorporated into the design.
It all looks great and very modern – Jetsons and all that – but personally I think we just keep to what we have and let the whole idea go for now. But that’s just me.
The other white elephant is the ongoing push for an acquatic centre for the shire. Anything to do with creating pools costs a lot of money and even more to keep going. (And do you build it at Daylesford or Creswick? Glenlyon please.)
So while I, like many people, would love a local heated pool all year round, once again, the shire is broke. And we have a tiny rate base, even with those higher rates, compared to other shires and cities so maybe we just keep heading to Ballarat or Kyneton. Not ideal but you have to live in the world you have.
As council CEO Bradley Thomas says on page three regarding finalising issues around Daylesford’s former landfill site, which closed 20 years ago, you can’t do everything at once. Just sayin’…