$3.8 Million Dollar Grant

After a long wait there appears to be some movement on the two remaining oval Hospital Wards. Esperance and Derwent Wards have sat empty and open for vandals for the past 20 years. The early history of vandalism was the illegal removal of the copper pipes and kitchen and other fittings, The price of copper and the lack of security in the early 2000’s made this easy, but cause a tremendous lot of damage to the internal walls.

A number of great ideas by would be entrepreneurs were put forward for this oval section which was originally wrapped around the sporting oval, now Woolworths Supermarket, however each idea failed to proceed due to the lack of funds and a lack of due diligence of the owners.

Many locals have described these two double story Wards, and the two single story Wards as an eye sore. Both single wards were deliberately lite and destroyed

Franklin House burnt in September 2018
New hope and money to go into the oval ward precinct.

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Council move to clean up oval wards.

The Derwent Valley Council have placed an Abatement Notice on the Willow Court Oval Wards currently owned by Glenora ll Pty Ltd and managed by Tony Ellis. The Wards have been an eye sore now for many years and although owned privately have failed to reach any planned potential. The oval and Wards were originally sold to Robert Rockerfellow, who after dividing profitable land from least profitable on sold the buildings to Ellis for unit development.

Mr Ellis, who has also planned an apartment complex for Willow Court in New Norfolk, offered an apology to those affected.

“A painful time it’s been for me and my family, being off on unpaid sick leave for nine months,” he said.

“However, after this really challenging period of my life, it’s wonderful to be back at work again for part two of my life.

“I would also like to take this opportunity to apologise to anyone who has been impacted — especially financially — by these delays, and I gratefully appreciate their patience as I’m now at work quickly resolving these issues.” Mercury Article Sept 2017

 

Abatement Notice

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