Market awaits council okay

By Glen Atwell
A COMMUNITY market for Cranbourne will hinge on the success of a notice of motion at a Casey Council meeting on Tuesday night.
If carried, the Cranbourne Chamber of Commerce will work with council officers to organise a monthly craft market, likely to be held at the Cranbourne Racecourse.
Chamber of commerce president Lisa Saint-John said the group was interested in supporting a high-quality community market for the Cranbourne area.
“We would encourage an experienced organisation such as Craft Markets Australia (CMA) to come to Cranbourne and run a market on a regular basis,” she said.
Ms Saint-John said the chamber had already established contact with CMA, which runs events in Red Hill, Mornington, Flemington and Warragul.
“We wanted to gauge if there was any interest from them to come to Cranbourne,” she said.
“CMA held a twilight market several years ago at the Cranbourne Racecourse and we are keen to see the Cranbourne Turf Club, or a similar organisation, and CMA enter into a new agreement to offer an ongoing community market for Cranbourne.”
Backers of the idea are pushing for a quality market, comprising high-quality, home made, fresh produce, not a trash and treasure-style set-up.
Councillor Steve Beardon said with the right people supporting the move, the market could become a success.
“David Banner, the president of the Cranbourne and District Residents’ Association, is behind the idea,” he said.
“A one-off market was held at the Cranbourne Racecourse a number of years ago and attracted close to 8000 people.
“We want to build towards getting a successful market up and running on a monthly basis,” Cr Beardon said.