CELEBRATING THE REGION’S HERITAGE AT HUON HILL PARKLANDS

Parklands Albury Wodonga is delighted to announce success with a Commonwealth Government “Your Community Heritage” grant to share stories about people, heritage and the environment on story boards across the region.

The project will develop story board signage at selected parkland sites, as well as virtual (interactive website) story boards to showcase our beautiful regional parklands to park users and visitors to the region.

Story Boards are to be installed at Huon Hill Lookout to give an overview of the natural and cultural heritage values of the regional parklands and Albury Wodonga Corporation’s award winning “greening of the national growth centre”.

An innovative aspect of this grant project is sharing stories about heritage sites around the regional parklands on our website www.parklands-alburywodonga.org.au, accessed through google interactive maps. This means people can go on a virtual tour of our regional parklands without leaving their desktop.

The announcement of this successful Commonwealth grant follows recent sad news of further hooning behaviour and damage being done to the visitor facilities at the Huon Hill Lookout and picnic area. All three lookout platforms, several barriers, bollards, bbq facilities, toilets, picnic tables, landscaping and other public infrastructure have been severely damaged over recent months, and there have been attempts to set the rotunda shelter on fire.

Stuart Roberton, Ranger with Parklands Albury Wodonga is disheartened by the poor behaviour of a handful of visitors who have vandalised the Huon Hill parkland.  “Each act of vandalism eats into the Parklands budget, and being a not-for-profit organisation, this means we lose money that would otherwise be spent elsewhere managing parks and facilities for our local community” Mr Roberton said.

Huon Hill Parklands is one of the “jewels in the crown” of the regional parklands.  It has been built by the community and is a popular tourist destination.  The Rotary Clubs of Wodonga, West Wodonga and Belvoir, local businesses, volunteers and community groups have invested significant time and effort establishing the Huon Hill – Kiewa River Parkland.

Parklands Albury Wodonga and Wodonga Council have been looking to improve the facilities at Huon Hill as a way to encourage more legitimate users of this spectacular lookout, while deterring the handful of people who are choosing to do the wrong thing. We ask that people observing suspicious activity at Huon Hill please report it immediately to the Wodonga Police. People can also contact Parklands to report park damage on (02) 6023 6714 or Wodonga Council on (02) 6022 9300.

Also see the Border Mail news story:
www.bordermail.com.au/story/2095416/huon-hill-graffiti-leaves-a-sour-taste/?cs=11