A 1.2 kilometre trail will be built around Lake Cobden to promote fitness and health.
A FITNESS trail is to be built around Lake Cobden as part of a further initiative to enhance the lake’s amenities by the Progressing Cobden group.
The 1.2-kilometre trail will have four to five exercise stations along the way to promote fitness, health and wellbeing.
It will also ensure other facilities at the lake — jetties, playground, barbecues and seating — are accessible to people of all abilities.
Member for Polwarth Terry Mulder announced $144,000 for the project from the State Planning and Community Development Department’s “Putting Locals First” program.
Corangamite Shire is contributing $6000, and the philanthropic trusts — the Ray and Joyce Uebergang Foundation, and the Gwen and Edna Jones Foundation — will also contribute $5000 each to the project’s $200,000 cost.
Project team convener Frank Martin said the Cobden community was also contributing through a paving brick fund-raiser that had attracted good support.
The trail’s construction will be done by a local contractor and some aspects of the project will be carried out by volunteers.
Work is due to start this week and be completed by the end of March next year.
Mr Martin said fund-raising from the community would continue to ensure the works to enhance the lake’s accessibility could be completed.
He said a trail around Lake Cobden had been identified by the town’s community in November 2009 as one of its top three priorities for the lake.
An earlier stage of the project to enhance Lake Cobden’s amenities, the construction of several jetties, was opened last year.