The state government has secured a site for the long-awaited Wallan ambulance station.
Land at 1-5 High Street, next to the Wallan GP Super Clinic, has been secured for the new 24-hour station.
The revelation is yet to be formerly announced but was discovered in the latest Victorian Government Gazette.
It comes four years after the former Baillieu government pledged to build the station in its first term at a site chosen by Ambulance Victoria with advice from Mitchell Shire and the local community.
Ambulance Victoria staff servicing the Wallan area have been operating from a small, temporary facility in Kilmore, a 15-minute drive from Wallan.
Yan Yean MP Danielle Green and state Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews were in Wallan last week campaigning for a hasty opening of the station.
“It’s a travesty. The money has been sitting there since 2011,” Ms Green said. “It shows abject neglect by this government not to build something so necessary to community safety and health in Wallan.”
Earlier this month, Health Minister David Davis told Parliament it would be built this year, but according to Ms Green, “not a sod has been turned nor a builder tender let”.
It follows a letter MP for Northern Victoria Wendy Lovell sent to Wallan residents late last year reassuring them the ambulance station was on track.
“I am writing to you today to let you know that the government is on track to fulfil this commitment to the people of Wallan and surrounds despite considerable difficulties securing appropriate land,” Ms Lovell wrote.
Wallan paramedics have been operating from the shared Piper Street, Kilmore, premises for just over a year.
Funding for the project is coming from the state government’s $151 million commitment to increase the number of paramedics and ambulance services across the state.
