By Michael Doran
For some time, Parks Victoria have said the Badger Weir Picnic Ground is scheduled to reopen to the public in March and the dedicated members of the Badger Creek Community Planning Group (BCCPG) are taking matters into their own hands to try to make that happen.
A group of 20 are spending Saturday 23 March putting the finishing touches to the Picnic Ground area in readiness to reopen and Doris Pozzi from the BCCPG said that they are responding to a request from Parks Victoria to lend a hand.
“They asked us to organise a group of 20 to help with the last stages of getting the park ready,” she said. “Parks Victoria (PV) have done all of the big infrastructure work and we are mulching the garden beds, doing some pruning and cleaning up because that is not part of their budget allocation.”
“We formed a relationship with PV and when their local person came out and talked to our group we found out why it was taking longer than we thought it would. One of the reasons was because they wanted to get more money to make some improvements that were not part of the repair work funding.”
Doris said the community is incredibly enthusiastic to get this done and when the group posted that the park was opening in early 2019 their facebook page had 2000 likes, shares and comments, a clear indicator of the affection the community has for the park.
“There is something a bit special about this park and its closure has been a huge issue for a lot of people, many have been quite upset about it,” she said. “I think it made it hard for local people to have a place to take their kids and go for picnics and evening walks as this place is visited constantly in the summer.
“For everybody, the degree of contact with the park very high and it’s not like a day trip to the botanical gardens. It’s almost like an extension of their backyard and for most that’s how they see it, they expect to come here whenever they want to.”
According to Doris, the closure would have been smoother if Parks Victoria had understood the depth of feeling locals have for the park.
“Really, all they needed to do was just communicate with us a bit more and I think if they had it would not have been as upsetting to the community as it has been.”
On Wednesday 20 March Parks Victoria said in a statement “that it is not in a position to comment at this time.”
