Toodyay Herald

Former IGA store and Victoria Hotel owners Dean Carter said he and wife Amanda sold their supermarket business and pub to focus more on local farming.

The Carters bought the Victoria Hotel six years ago with plans to spend at least $2.5 million to upgrade the run-down property, which reopened in 2019 after extensive renovations and the construction of new rear accommodation units.

Mr Carter said the couple had bought a second farm near Toodyay.

The IGA sale was for the business only – not the building and land which the couple retain, while the Victoria Hotel sale of land, buildings and business did not include an empty former tea shop next door, which the couple still own.

Mr Carter said he was 61 years old and wanted a change in direction.

“It was a big decision but money isn’t everything,” he said.

“We wanted something that was different and less busy.”

The new IGA store operator and Victoria Hotel owner is WA private company Guru Brothers Food and Liquor Merchant Pty Ltd.

The company secretary was overseas last month and unable to be contacted by The Herald for for comment.

New IGA store and Victoria Hotel General Manager Peter Douglas said the new owners were Australians who lived in Perth.

Mr Douglas said the new IGA store owners planned to modernise the supermarket and offer a bigger range of fresh products, similar to those at their “flagship” store in Darch.

Toodyay shoppers would be offered “a lot more fresh meat with more specials advertised locally on Facebook”, Mr Douglas said.

There will be more products on the shelves and a lot more WA fresh fruit and vegetables.
More gluten-free and vegetarian food would also be available.

However, there had been a delay in obtaining a Lotto licence to continue selling tickets from the store because the sale had gone through faster than expected.

The company had applied to Lotterywest in Perth but Mr Douglas said he did not know how long this would take to process.

The next nearest Lotto outlet is in Northam.

All IGA store staff had been retained under a company policy of continuing to employ local people.

The same applied at the Victoria Hotel, where Mr Douglas said all existing staff had been retained.

He said the new owners planned to develop the Victoria Hotel to “make it more of a local destination and central hub for the town”.

“We like Toodyay and think it has a great future,” he said.

“We want the town to grow.”

Toodyay Locals Care founder Roz Davidson said the IGA store’s new owners were continuing to donate food for local homeless people, without which the charity service could not survive.

The Herald was unable to contact potential buyers about the Freemasons Hotel sale.

One of Toodyay’s two hardware stores also changed hands last year, as did Wendouree Café which reverted to its original name after it was renovated and re-opened as Amy’s Café a few years earlier.

The State Government said re-advertising the revised budget for public comment was “not considered necessary” if the “reasons and objects for proposing differential rates” were consistent with those previously advertised last year.

The overall outcome remains the same, and Shire CEO Suzie Haslehurst said Chalice – which is developing what it calls a “world-class” mineral deposit in Julimar – had agreed to pay the increased cost of local road repairs.

Roads used by local farmers to transport crops, livestock and other bulk materials were being damaged by heavy mining traffic, with ratepayers having to foot the bill.

All other 2022-23 rates adopted last year remain the same, and most ratepayers will not see any difference in their payments.

Chalice will now pay the same ‘UV (Unimproved Value) General’ rate of 0.014170c in the dollar as properties used for “residential and/or minor rural pursuits”.

Councillors voted on August 10 last year – 21 days before an August 31 budget deadline imposed by the State – to adopt a new mining rate to pay for road repairs.

Ministerial approval had been sought on July 15.

Councillors agreed at the time to amend the budget if the new rate was rejected.

The Minister’s office did not respond until September 5, when the new rate was rejected for being more than twice the next highest rate in the council’s 2022-23 budget.

Councillors agreed this month to adopt a revised budget and send new rates notices to the owners of 35 local properties covered by mining and mineral exploration leases.

They also agreed to forward their revised 2022-23 budget to the Minister’s office by the end of this month.

The $152,715 drop in shire revenue for road repairs is expected to be covered by a new “road maintenance agreement” with Chalice.

“All conditions have been discussed and generally agreed with Chalice personnel,” Shire Corporate and Community Services Manager Tabitha Bateman reported to this month’s special council meeting.

“The first Chalice-initiated maintenace grade was completed in December.”

The Shire of Toodyay says it has begun talking to applicants who wish to re-open the medical centre and work locally after it advertised tenders for new contracts last month.

Shire CEO Suzie Haslehurst said she could not say when local GP and other services might resume.

This would depend on the outcome of negiotiations which were due to start in the final week of last month.

Re-opening the medical centre was discussed at a councillor workshop on November 18 and debated behind closed doors at a council meeting a week later.

Councillors voted 8-0 for Ms Haslehurst to “open negotiations with proponents regarding the terms of an agreement”.

They directed her to report back on the “outcomes of negotiations” by no later than January 31 next year.

The talks would include what business model the shire should adopt for the centre to reopen.
Ms Haslehurst said the shire owned some of the medical centre’s equipment, including patient beds, computers and furniture.

The centre would not be left bare when the Wheatbelt Health Network moved out.
The service provider had not been charged rent to use the shire-owned medical centre building.

Negotiations with replacement GPs would include whether the shire should continue to offer rent-free premises under any new contract.

Other considerations might include free housing, a car or other incentives.

No federal or State funding was available to help pay these additional costs, which the shire said were falling increasingly on regional local government councils such as Toodyay.

Ms Haslehurst said the shire had told the WA Government that it was unfair to expect regional ratepayers to subsidise local doctor services that city people took for granted.

“For instance, you don’t get the Town of Claremont subsiding local GPs,” she said.

Mr Haslehurst said the shire wanted to keep as many local medical services as possible.

This year’s races were scratched and the running of the Toodyay Cup moved to Belmont after the local betting and public bar area was deemed unsafe for public use.

The facilities are owned by the shire and leased to the Toodyay Race Club.

Cancellation of this year’s September races prompted the shire to order a structural engineer’s report which highlighted a number of electrical, plumbing and structural defects.

Repairs would require “significant cost”, Ms Haslehurst said.

The club said in May that it planned to resume local racing next year, but this may now be in doubt.

It said at the time that it had spent thousands of dollars on maintenance over several years but had no money to pay for major repairs.

The main roof was beyond repair, gutters were rusted and new electrical equipment had been wrecked by heavy rain in April.

A Herald inspection of the damage revealed that the clubrooms, members’ bar and jockey changerooms also needed repairs.

Ms Haslehurst said the shire had written to the race club about “a number of issues of concern in relation to risk”.

“We will also get our own insurers to inspect the building,” she said.

The track is used for racing only once a year for the running of the Toodyay Cup.

Ms Haslehurst said there had been no shire contact with Racing and Wagering WA about the future of the historic race track.

She said the shire met Toodyay Race Club representatives at the end of last month and presented them with a list of the “more urgent repairs” that needed to be done before racing could safely resume.

The club had agreed to respond with a presentation to a February meeting of the Toodyay Shire Council.

One option was to give ownership of the land to the race club.

However, the club has said previously that the shire – as owner of the buildings – was responsible for repairs, which the club said should be completed before any handover.

Toodyay Race Club Chair and former shire deputy president John Prater said the club would consider its options before making a presentation to the council in February.

The Toodyay Race Club was founded in 1865 and celebrated its 150th year in 2015.

The popular country racecourse is one of the oldest in WA.

A ‘fourth wave’ of the virus is expected to peak across Australia this month but be shorter and less severe than previously.

There were 75 new WA hospital admissions – including one directly into intensive care – during the seven-day period, and 14 people aged 75-99 died.

The Wheatbelt infection rate for same period was 193 per 100,000 people, compared with 381 in the city.

Re-infections accounted for 16 per cent of all new cases overall, compared with 13 per cent the previous week.

State health officials said only a third of all West Australians had received a recommended fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Passenger rail services were not affected.

Local residents with gophers, wheelchairs and prams have complained that the bitumen pathway across the town’s busy east-west rail link is dangerous.

They feared tumbling off the crumbling edges onto the track and being unable to get out of the way of approaching trains.

The crossing is also used by children.

The PTA said a year ago that a controlled crossing with gates and an audible warning signal would cost about $1 million.

There was “no solid timeframe” for the upgrade to be done, a spokesperson said.

Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan said grain handler CBH had bought a 105ha site at Northam to boost WA export capacity to three million tonnes a month over the next decade.

The State had contributed $200,000 for road and rail design, Ms MacTiernan said.

The new site is 20km east of Northam at Avon Industrial Park on the Great Eastern Highway and WA’s east-west rail link.

CBH says it is using four temporary sites there to receive grain, and was building five more to handle this year’s harvest.

These would be converted to permanent storage under a $4 billion plan to expand WA grain handling over the next decade.

The new ‘Meenar’ facility would include new rail sidings and grain loaders.