Mayor weighs in on Karkana site

Horsham mayor Mark Radford is confident a disused Karkana Support Services site at Haven presents a wealth of opportunities.

Cr Radford said the decommissioned site on Grahams Bridge Road, which previously provided employment for people with disabilities, could again play a creative role in meeting community needs.

When fully operational, Karkana site employees processed large quantities of fruit and vegetables weekly.

Cr Radford said there could be merit in reestablishing land on the site to grow produce and linking that with an appropriate service.

“In its heyday, Karkana provided some really great work opportunities for people in our community who might not be able to get work elsewhere,” he said.

“It had a really good reputation for growing quality vegetables – there must be good soil there.”

Cr Radford said Horsham’s growing migrant community could also potentially benefit from a community garden at the site.

“Maybe there could be an opportunity for a migrant community to pursue some sort of gardening opportunity there,” he said.

“The migrant population is really important – many families come here from different parts of the world and bring different skills with them and it’s important we make them feel supported and valued.

“We have many migrants coming to Horsham, many are professional people who might work as doctors, nurses or at Grain Innovations Park who come from all parts of the world.”

Cr Radford said there could be an opportunity to administer support programs for people struggling with mental health or requiring drug or alcohol rehabilitation at the site.

“One of the great cathartic things to do, in a rehabilitation sense, is to get out in the garden and do something with your hands,” he said.

“The site could be a nexus that integrates a rehab centre and part of that could be a community garden to create an opportunity for people to do something productive with their hands and learn new skills.

“For people seeking that kind of mental health or drug and alcohol rehabilitation here, you have to drive a long way to find that kind of centre.”

Cr Radford said Horsham Rural City Council would be keen to help landowners secure State

Government funding when a key use was identified.

The Uniting Wimmera site, which has a processing centre and a second building with large office spaces and activity rooms, has been empty since November, 2019.

Its closure followed a National Disability Insurance Scheme, NDIS, review that deemed the site unfit for its purpose.

Uniting Wimmera executive officer Josh Koenig said previous landowners, Karkana, sold most of the agricultural land at the site due to years of severe drought in the early 2000s.

But Mr Koenig said the more than 0.4-hectares that remained could be used to develop a smallscale community gardening project.

“Before then Wimmera Uniting Care bought the site in 2009, they grew pumpkins and strawberries and things like that,” he said.

“There’s still farmland left out there that could potentially be good growing soil – you could look at a smaller-scale project such as a community farming project.”

Mr Koenig said combining supported independent living options for people with a disability with a farming project could be feasible.

“There is merit to be explored for supported independent-living housing – with paid employees to help people live as independently as they can,” he said.

“It could be a combination of a few ideas, maybe that could be one – while there could be produce grown on the land.”

Mr Koenig said Uniting Wimmera transitioned out of the Grahams Bridge Road site to ensure it could provide supported-employment options for people with a disability to a suitable standard.

“We were running a model that was exactly the same for 20 years, and in 2020 we expected more sustainable outcomes for people with disabilities living within our community,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to put people in a facility, out of sight out of mind.

“While it served its purpose, it was no longer suitable for supported disability employment.”

“The site could be a nexus that integrates a rehab centre and part of that could be a community garden to create an opportunity for people to do something productive with their hands and learn new skills” – Mark Radford