The multi-million dollar Timboon to Port Campbell rail trail appears to be a step closer to reality with another $40 million of government funding to be poured into the Shipwreck Coast Master Plan this week.
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Member for Wannon and federal health minister Dan Tehan told The Standard exclusively on Sunday about the imminent announcement.
"The deal will be finalised this week," he said.
In October last year Prime Minister Scott Morrison visited the south-west to announce an injection of $58 million to develop the Twelve Apostles as a tourist destination.
The latest cash splash includes $30 million from the federal government and a $10 million commitment from the state government for a Master Plan contingency fund, which The Standard understands could include the Timboon to Port Campbell rail trail.
The multi-million dollar tourism trail would help ease Great Ocean Road congestion and encourage visitors to stay longer and has been languishing on the government funding wait-lists more than 15 years since it was first envisioned.
The Twelve Apostles Trail has been in the pipeline since about 2002. Funding for a business case study was secured in 2014, but funding had not arrived.
The trail would extend the existing Camperdown-Timboon Rail Trail to Port Campbell and link to the Twelve Apostles and on to Princetown.
"There are funds for additional projects as part of the Shipwreck Coast Master Plan," Mr Tehan said.
The member for Wannon said the deal had been more than 18 months in the making involving prime ministers, Victorian premier Daniel Andrews and relevant ministers.
"It's taken a lot of time and effort, strong advocacy to get this deal finalised," Mr Tehan said.
"This is on top of the $58 million already allocated and there's the potential for public and private partnerships to ensure the Shipwreck Coast is a world class tourism destination."
Mr Tehan said the region had been significantly under-resourced considering the millions of visitors that the Shipwreck Coast/Twelve Apostles attracted.
Each year, more people visit the Great Ocean Road region than Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef combined, and in the year ending June 2017, its 5.8 million visitors spent $1.3 billion supporting 11,200 jobs in the region.
Mr Tehan said the funding was on top of the $104 million for the upgrade to the Melbourne to Warrnambool rail line, $5 million for the Warrnambool central business district redevelopment and the $1.25 million for the upgrade of facilities at the Warrnambool racecourse.
"We are making sure that our region is getting a fair share," Mr Tehan said.
"The end result of this latest announcement is that the Twelve Apostles will be a world-class tourism destination," he said.
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