By Molly Magennis
The Hobsons Bay mayor has laid out his areas of focus for his 2021-22 mayoral term.
This term will be Mayor Peter Hemphill’s third stint as mayor.
He was first elected to council in 1999 and served as mayor in 2008-09 and 2015-16.
In a council meeting held on Tuesday, February 9, Cr Hemphill laid out his four key areas of focus over the next year, which will be heritage, environment, infrastructure and community building.
One of the key projects Cr Hemphill will champion is advocating for the Newport Railway Workshops to have increased heritage protection.
In 1994, Heritage Victoria identified the site as “one of the best surviving 19th century railway workshops in the world.”
With the help of the rail workshop volunteers, Cr Hemphill will push for a UNESCO World Heritage listing.
The mayor said he has always had a strong focus on heritage, particularly since his children were brought up in the area.
“Obviously a major focus is….the Newport Railway Workshops, which I have been interested in trying to preserve for a number of years, they’re under a bit of threat,” he said at the council meeting.
“There is potential and this should be the case, potential for this to be part of the UNESCO World Heritage and I will do my utmost to see if we can do our part in moving towards that.”
During his last term as mayor in 2016, Cr Hemphill launched the Hobsons Bay Heritage Street Signs program, now featured across 45 streets in the municipality.
The mayor will look to promote the expansion of the program to Spotswood, as well as progress plans for the digitisation for the program.
“We have an interesting lot of history right across the municipality, and it’s great that we can name the streets,” he said.
“It is interesting and I know it’s very well received in the historical societies that we have in our municipality.”
