The Snowy River Hostel committee is ready for the next steps to keep the old facility as a local asset for the aged community.

At last Thursday’s Snowy Monaro Regional Council meeting, committee member, Cheryl Mould, presented the outcome of their community meeting and vote to councillors and urged for council to help with the next steps.

“More than 200 people attended our public meeting, we had two presenters to give a presentation on what they thought they might like to do with the hostel and from that meeting, there were 405 votes put forward to the committee, of which 332 of those votes were allocated to Currawarna Assisted Living in Bombala, 68 went to Monaro Community First and five went to other,” Ms Mould said.

“The committee contacted the relevant presenters with the vote outcome and the overwhelming feedback was just wonderful, our community was so supportive.

“I stand here today asking councillors to contact the board for Currawarna Assisted Living, to make an appointment as soon as possible and sit down and work out a way forward,” she said.

“If the council, staff, councillors, and mayor are happy for Currawarna to take over, the building will require a lease or for Currawarna to acquire the building, then the committee would like to work with Currawarna and start the fundraising process.”

Councillor Reuben Rose gave notice at the meeting that council has previously resolved to explore community-led options for the future use of the Snowy River Hostel, that a local community committee has now been established to identify a suitable partner organisation and preferred future use of the facility.

He resolved to allocate $5000 as seed funding to support the community committee, funding be provided from reserves of the former Snowy River Council, subject to appropriate acquittal and governance requirements determined by the CEO.

The proposed $5000 allocation enables the community-led process to proceed in an orderly and accountable way.

Funding from the former Snowy River Council reserves reflects the facility’s historical connection to the Snowy River area and avoids impact on current operational budgets.

“There’s urgent versus important things to do, and unfortunately the urgent sometimes gets dealt with rather than the important, but I think this is an issue to me that is really an issue of importance that’s been dragging on for a period of time,” Cr Rose said.

Council voted six to five in favour of the motion, granting the Snowy River Hostel committee $5000.

“I’m very keen to see us trying to move forward in this way, I would like to thank Ms Mould and the committee for the work they’ve done and I think there’s a real commitment by council to try and see this move forward,” Snowy Monaro Regional Council mayor, Councillor Chris Hanna, said.

“I was in favour of allocating $5000 for the Snowy River Hostel community group to continue their journey.”

“I support the community’s passion to re-purpose the Snowy River Hostel facility. The recent community meeting was very well attended, the community is right behind the project.”

“Majority of residents support the Currawarna model, lots of talks to still happen but progress is being made.”

Visit the council website for more information.