Parish Block Murlong Street

As you may know, the Parish owns the two vacant blocks either side of St Mary’s Primary School, Swan Hill. The Parish Finance Committee could see that leaving these idle was becoming increasingly unfeasible. A significant chunk of our parish income is currently chewed up in rates for these blocks, and more broadly we needed to rethink how we could make best use of our assets to develop some alternative income streams to support our core Mission into the future. The Finance Committee decided therefore to investigate our options. The Diocese advised us to undertake a Feasibility Study, which then opened up an exciting opportunity for the future use of the Murlong St block in partnership with another Catholic agency. This project is yet to be finalised, so we aren’t in a position to share all the details. It does mean however that we have agreed to sell the block, and that the Diocese is now managing the necessary planning applications in preparation for the next step. This process also includes works to free up the Karinie St Industrial block for sale. St Mary’s school had been using some of the Murlong St block for staff carparking in an informal arrangement. They are now quite advanced in their plans to fence the boundary and build a new car park within the Parish Land marked and set aside for School-Operations. Kate has informed the school community of these changes. I would like to thank her and the school for their cooperation.

Personally speaking, I know this type of thing is not necessarily my strength. The process has been far more complicated than I expected. I would like to thank the Finance Committee and Diocese for their great support. We are confident the end result will be something we can all be very proud of, and the sale will also help secure the financial position of the Parish into the future.

Fr James Kerr PP