UPDATE:
Williamstown RSL Club will close on January 3, the RSL state president said on Wednesday.
Major General David McLachlan said staff would be told today.
“The sub-branch will close as a commercial operation on January 3 but it will continue to exist as a traditional sub-branch, but we will have to find new premises for it,” he said.
“We don’t even know if they want to continue as a traditional sub-branch.”
Williamstown MP Wade Noonan said the Williamstown RSL was an institution which had honoured and supported servicemen and women for almost 100 years.
“It’s one thing for the sub-branch in its current building and location to close, it’s another thing for it to close altogether and be lost to Williamstown and I think that’s what the community would want to avoid at all costs.”
A community meeting will be held at the club at 6.30pm on Monday.
EARLIER:
EXCLUSIVE
Williamstown RSL Club will close as early as January, according to a well-placed source.
In July, Star Weekly reported that Grocon had lodged an application with Hobsons Bay council for a five-storey, 69-dwelling development with a smaller RSL club and retail on the ground floor.
The development comes with the club struggling to repay a $2.8 million debt.
However, Star Weekly has been told that there are now plans to close the club altogether.
Major General David McLachlan, the RSL state president, confirmed that RSL Victoria had been speaking to other parties about potential non-residential uses for the site.
Mr McLachlan confirmed there may have been an offer from a football club to purchase the property.
“There are a couple involved and that’s commercial-in-confidence at this point in time,” he said. “There is concern about the future of the sub-branch as an entity and we’re working through all the options. There are no final decisions made in regard to what will happen there.”
He said head office was handling the club’s debt. “The club continues to be underwritten by the state branch at the moment.”
Asked what would happen if Williamstown RSL closed, Mr McLachlan said those matters were confidential.
“It may just close and we take the role of the sub-branch into another sub-branch, but they’re matters which are still being negotiated and they’re in-camera at the moment,” he said.
Williamstown RSL president Bruce O’Brien said the club premises on the corner of Ferguson Street and Melbourne Road had been gifted to WWI servicemen in 1919 by the then local Red Cross Society.
“It was formed for welfare and to keep the memory going,” he said. “If it’s gone it’s bloody gone. It’s sad. It would break my heart.
“I had a dad and two uncles who went away; one uncle didn’t come back.
“To me, this whole thing is just heart- wrenching. That land was gifted to the returned soldiers. How can some other bastard just sell it from under us.”
