Michelle Slater
Latrobe City Council has agreed to put the wrecking ball through the approximately 150-year-old Traralgon Visitor Information Centre building to make way for railway station upgrades.
Latrobe City councillors decided to demolish the former Methodist Church that sits on VicTrack land on Princes Street, but will salvage items of social or cultural value from the building.
The visitor information service will be relocated to the yet-to-be-opened Gippsland Performing Arts Centre.
Council had looked into re-locating the building but a structural assessment report found it would cost ratepayers more than $600,000, while demolition and salvaging items would cost $80,000.
Cr Dan Clancey said he was “not comfortable” agreeing to the demolition, which was made after consulting with Traralgon Community Development Association and town historical society.
“When we make a decision to demolish and remove what’s part of our history, it’s really sad, it’s a sad day when we make this decision, but this building is not salvageable,” Cr Clancey said.
“We are not able to bring it back to its former glory, it requires too much money, and even if it was done, it still won’t be in its former glory days.
“I’m not comfortable with this. We weren’t talking about this 20 years ago, or 10 years ago when we had an option to save this building, but we are now left in an untenable position.”
The 1870s era building had already been moved twice, once at its original site by Victory Park, and then it was re-located to Princes Street where it became the information centre.
Traralgon Historical Society president Barbara Johnson said Latrobe City had made a “pragmatic” choice to demolish, but would preserve significant items.
Ms Johnson said she hoped for items such as the timber door, window frames and wood panelling to be salvaged and put on display elsewhere.
Latrobe City has promised to run a community expression of interest process and come up with recommendations on where these could be put on show.
“These are the bits we want to be able to document, the sort of timber building techniques we saw in the 1870s, but now we have to find a place to display it out of the weather,” Ms Johnson said.
