Work starting on a $15 million project to revamp Warrnambool’s main street was a welcome sight this week.
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Liebig Street has long been in need of change. It’s served our retailers and shoppers well for decades but it has looked tired for some time. Footpaths are far from smooth or wide enough to navigate, cramped for room by competing interests such as dining tables, signs and goods.
Main shopping areas in other regional centres including Bendigo, Geelong and Mildura have all undergone major revamps while Warrnambool is largely unchanged.
For a regional hub with a strong tourism industry, change is critical. The adage ‘if you are standing still, you are going backwards’, springs to mind.
Warrnambool City Council’s decision to undertake the CBD renewal project aims to give the city a fresh, new look when completed at the end of 2018.
Work started with 19 mature plane trees cut down in Liebig Street on Monday night.
By Tuesday, in the cold, hard light of day, it was easy to see why the upgrade had to happen. The trees’ removal not only allowed more light into the street, giving a brighter feel, they exposed dilapidated building facades landlords have been able to hide.
Improvements at ground level will hopefully have a positive impact on building owners with grants available to help fund the cost of building improvements.
The feedback to the trees’ axing was stunningly negative on social media with residents bemoaning their loss.
The council has spent months explaining and promoting the changes to shopkeepers and residents but clearly their messages were ignored.
Residents were complaining the change was environmental vandalism. But the plans include that ornamental pear trees be planted when major road, footpath and street furniture upgrades are complete.
The loss of the trees, like the disruptions to road and pedestrian traffic, are short-term pain for longer term gain.
Warrnambool is a major regional city and our main shopping area is no longer that.
Businesses and shoppers flock to retail areas on the city’s fringe to newer, bigger, brighter, bolder precincts. If the CBD retained its current look and feel, the heart of the city would stop beating.
The CBD needs to reinvent itself. These works, painful as they will be, are essential. We have to embrace change not run scared.