Moyne shire's plan to ease worker housing shortage in Port Fairy

Acting chief executive officer Brett Davis said the council was investigating several options to provide some temporary housing for workers in Port Fairy and across the shire.

And it was also working on an advertising campaign to attract an expanded summer workforce help fill the gaps.

Businesses in Port Fairy have raised the alarm about their struggle to get staff, particularly in hospitality, and say affordable housing was the biggest obstacle.

Moyne Shire has already received state government funding to install cabins in Mortlake and Koroit for the "express purpose" of putting workers in them.

"Here in Port Fairy we will look at some of our own holdings in regard to some of the properties we've got to see if we can doing something similar as well," Mr Davis said.

"How do we gear up for next summer and bring that workforce in to help with our tourism offer which really suffered over this summer when we had COVID shutdowns?

"In August/September this year I'd be imagining a campaign fairly strongly along with businesses to go out to universities and other areas saying: 'work, stay, play' over summer in Port Fairy.

"It's ultimately up to businesses, but where council can support we will through our economic development initiatives.

"The beauty of cabins are they can be used in short-term for workers, and longer term they flip into holiday lets."

Mortlake already has five cabins which were being rented out for the next three months to workers. "Otherwise they wouldn't have any accommodation," Mr Davis said.

Koroit was due to get five by the end of the year.

Moyne is exploring funding opportunities to install up to 12 more cabins across its shire-owned caravan parks, with potentially half of them in Port Fairy.

Mr Davis said Moyne had been one of the leaders in the key worker housing initiative that the state was looking at across the seven councils in this region.

About 40 council and business representatives met with the state's small business commissioner Lynda McAlary-Smith in Port Fairy on Wednesday who said it was now becoming important to pair any jobs with accommodation.

"No idea should be off the table at the moment," she said.

"I don't think the labour shortages are going away any time soon.

"Regionally you've got the double-whammy of the accommodation challenges as well."

She said Melbourne have accommodation challenges, "but nothing like the regions".

"In the city it might be that there is accommodation but it's just too expensive, but in the region it's just not there. It's just crazy."

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