The end of ‘a long saga’ for St Arnaud could be in sight, with Northern Grampians Shire Council voting to include a redevelopment of the town’s early-learning centre in its 10-year capital plan.

The five-stage redevelopment aims to address what a consultant’s report termed a ‘critical shortage’ of long daycare places in the town – an issue projected to grow in coming years.

Northern Grampians Shire was among the first Victorian municipalities to receive funding for a dedicated pre-prep facility under the State Government’s Best Start, Best Life program in 2023.

While the council initially planned to build the facility in St Arnaud’s Market Square car park, adjacent to St Arnaud Early Learning Centre, community pushback prompted the council to scrap the plan.

Instead, the council opted to build the new centre at the site of St Arnaud Primary School in a resolution adopted in May 2024.

But while the centre, which opened in March last year, helped alleviate demand for kinder and pre-prep places in the town, a shortage of long daycare places remained.

The council investigated three options to help address the issue: constructing a new early years hub at St Arnaud Primary School, with an estimated cost of between $6-8 million; a staged redevelopment of the existing Market Square early-learning centre, estimated to cost $2.6-million; or maintaining the status quo.

At this month’s council meeting, Cr Karen Probst said a redevelopment of the existing early-learning centre was the best choice.

“This motion is about the future direction. Our prep buildings are kind of under control at the moment,” she said.

“We love the terminology of the Victorian government where they say we’re now a ‘childhood oasis’. That might apply to kinder – it doesn’t apply to the early-learning centre and to the long daycare places.

“This proposal is looking at the future infrastructure upgrades we need to make to the existing early-learning centre so that it’s flexible for the future developments of what we need for our long daycare.”

Cr Probst said providing more long daycare places was critical to St Arnaud’s local economy.

“There’s a real pressure on them, because parents can’t get their kids into long daycare, which means employers can’t get people to work,” she said.

The proposed redevelopment is split into five stages, variously projected to cost between $130,000 and $445,000.

Included in the project would be the reconfiguration of the building’s central zone, reception, office, walkways, staff toilet and laundry; the installation of craft benches and acoustic panelling; the extension of the existing roof; and the refurbishment of the kitchen.

Cr Probst said all five stages of the redevelopment project would be incorporated into the council’s 10-year capital plan.

“The sad part is that we don’t have money to pay for it now – we have to apply for funding from upper levels of government for it to proceed, but we do have an application at the moment for one of them,” she said.

“We’ll cross our fingers, but everything is there ready, so as soon as we see funding become available from other levels of government, we’re ready to go apply for it and hopefully … improve the number of daycare places so that more people can get back to work and more employers can get employees.”

The entire April 29, 2026 edition of The Weekly Advertiser is available online. READ IT HERE!

The entire April 29, 2026 edition of AgLife is available online. READ IT HERE!