By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Arthur Wren Hall and Hampton Park Community House could be demolished as part of a radical Casey Council draft master-plan for central Hampton Park.
The plan creates a 1.4-hectare ‘community hub’ including a $15-million-plus two-storey community hall with multi-purpose rooms as well as a new library on the site of the 24-year-old Arthur Wren Hall.
The existing community house will make way for a car park and town square, and the current library will become a family and children’s centre.
The plan also includes a landscaped east-west ‘main street’ built between the community hub and the retail precinct.
A vote on the plan was pulled from a Casey Council meeting agenda on 20 March.
It has been deferred until May to allow further negotiations with the community house and Hampton Park Progress Association (HPPA), which is a financial stakeholder in Arthur Wren Hall.
Councillor Wayne Smith told the meeting that the HPPA as well the then-Shire of Cranbourne and Federal Government had co-funded the hall.
The HPPA had sold a former hall and a Scout hall to raise money for the project. According to the HPPA, the two former properties are now worth $1.7 million.
Cr Smith said Casey needed to do research whether it was liable to compensate the HPPA before the master-plan was put on public exhibition.
The HPPA declined to comment to Star News.
Hampton Park Community House manager Tania Sacco said she’d been assured by Casey that the community house was a “vital” part of the hub.
The community house provided affordable childcare, and and array of English-language, womens leadership and other courses.
“We’ve been firm minded that if they want us to move we need more space, not less,” Ms Sacco said.
“Hampton Park, like the City of Casey, is a growing community.
“More and more people need help from the community house.”
Ms Sacco said the area had been “going up and down like a yo-yo for 15 years”, and needed a focus on employment services.
“This is a great step forward to revitalise the community.”
