General News
19 November, 2025
No spots ‘big restrictor on growth’
BOORT Ward councillor David Weaver says the shire’s northern child care desert is limiting growth in the district.
Meeting with young families, Cr Weaver said: “We need child care more than ever ... we have young families travelling up to 200km a day.”
He said the lack of child care ranked as high as the need for home building blocks.
“It takes a village to raise a child but that’s very hard when both parents are working, they don’t have extended family in the town and there’s no child care places locally,” Cr Weaver said.
“Facilities in Wycheproof and Charlton cost about $2.5 million each. With the feds putting $5 million on the table for Loddon Shire, there are opportunities for Boort and elsewhere.”
Cr Weaver said co-location of child care was an option for Boort.
“That’s what they have done in Wedderburn and at Boort District School, there’s the room to do the same thing,” he said. “You can put a 20 or 30km circle around some towns out of Bendigo and there’s child care. Do this here, and there’s nothing.”
Cr Weaver also raised road safety concerns during the busy grain harvest.
“We’re the largest grain receival around and our young mums are driving against the traffic to get kids to child care.”