Way back in January, the Friends and Mitchell BUG prepared a submission to the Mitchell Shire Council recommending that it include plans for a new Wandong to Heathcote Rail Trail in its council plan for the next four years.
Specifically we asked the council to seek funding for a feasibility study for the Mitchell Shire part of the trail and to open dialogue with the City of Greater Bendigo and the state government. And we asked them to think really big …
“A long distance trail,” we said, “between Wandong and Heathcote linking up with the O’Keefe Rail Trail from Bendigo will significantly enhance the attractiveness of existing trails by becoming a link in a network of regionally important trails. Such a network would improve the attractiveness and usage of the Goulburn River High Country Rail Trail and generate significant flow-on economic benefits. The trail would only be about 30 km short of linking the whole regional trail network to Melbourne’s trail network via the Craigieburn Trail. Such an ambitious vision needs to be kept in mind now while planning other trails, to ensure their future feasibility.”
Now, we wait to see whether the vision is adopted.