Maintenance work on Trafalgar Railway Station’s building was completed early last month.
The works were delivered by Direct Property Building Services on behalf of VicTrack.
They included replacing guttering, weatherboards, plaster, and window frames, as well as painting and other minor works.
“VicTrack is carrying out repair works to the Trafalgar Station building, which will continue to be leased by the Baw Baw Arts Alliance as a community and arts space,” said a VicTrack spokesperson.
“Baw Baw Arts Alliance has installed solar panels on the station building to help reduce electricity costs, using funding the group received from VicTrack’s Community Grants Program.”
Baw Baw Arts Alliance has leased the Trafalgar Railway Station building since 2015 under a community sublease with VicTrack, following the building’s restoration under the Victorian Government’s Community Use of Vacant Rail Buildings Program.
The group will now occupy the building under a direct community lease with VicTrack so it can continue to be used by local people as an exhibition and arts space.
VicTrack’s community leasing program enables not-for-profit groups and local councils to lease buildings, land and other assets from VicTrack at a significantly reduced rent so they can provide benefits to their local communities.
VicTrack has run two rounds of its Community Grants Program, which enables not-for-profit groups that lease VicTrack assets for community purposes to apply for small grants to support them with their activities and help them upgrade and manage the assets they lease.
The Community Use of Vacant Rail Buildings Program involves restoring disused station buildings in regional towns, some of which have been vacant for decades, so they can be used by local community groups.
Leasing of the railway station building has a long history, going back to at least 2003 when Trafalgar Community Development Association (TCDA) approached Ian Maxfield, the then Member for Narracan to encourage VicTrack to fill the building’s vacancy by advertising in Traf News.
Nothing came of that, so that by 2013, the railway station building was then in a state of disrepair due to lack of maintenance and being unoccupied by a tenant.
As such the state of the building reflected badly on the town’s image to those people who stop to use the toilet block adjoining the railway station.
Consequently, Traf News, TCDA, Trafalgar District Historical Society and Trafalgar Chamber of Commerce and Industry led a campaign to reinvigorate the railway station.
Discussions held between those community organisations, together with community involvement since at least 2002, indicated a strong willingness on behalf of the Trafalgar community for its railway station building to be restored, and then maintained through it being occupied by community group(s) or local businesses.
In about 2015, Community Bank Trafalgar & District, after negotiations with VicTrack, took out a lease on the building, and sub-leased it to Baw Baw Arts Alliance, which has been the tenant to this day.
