By BRIDGET COOK
CONFUSION is rife about the dollar amount allocated to a community renewal program aimed at revitalising the Hampton Park community.
Narre Warren South MP Judith Graley condemned the Napthine Government in Parliament last week for cutting funding from the Hampton Park Community Renewal (HPCR) project from $1 million to $800,000.
However the Minister for Community Services Mary Wooldridge has hit back and said she was unsure where Ms Graley and the HPCR committee got the $1 million figure from.
The renewal project was started six years ago by the Labor State Government and consists of a committee of local residents who address the issues of neglect in Hampton Park and plan for the future of the suburb.
Speaking in Parliament last week, Ms Graley said the committee was under the understanding that it would have $1 million to work with.
“Over the past six years, the extraordinarily committed team has worked tirelessly to address disadvantage and neglect in Hampton Park,” she said.
“Through a letter sent to me last week, which is signed by the entire HPCR committee, I learnt that on 6 August the Department of Human Services advised that the flexible funds allocated for the project have been decreased to $800 000.
“The committee had been advised and was operating under the impression that $1 million of flexible funds had been allocated to the renewal project.
“All planning over the past six years had been done in the expectation that this funding would be provided.”
Ms Wooldridge said she did not know where the $1 million figure had come from.
“I have been advised by my department that all the community renewal sites were allocated $800,000 in flexible funding, a notional amount, so that they were able to develop projects for the work they do,” she said.
“I do not know where the member got the $1 million figure from.
“The Hampton Park group has advised that it was told this in a meeting early on, but it is not the case.
“Whoever provided that information in the first instance was mistaken.”
Ms Wooldridge said the HPCR group has already been project funded for $491,000 of good local community initiatives.
“Its members have done great work in the last couple of years and developed further initiatives for funding,” she said.
“Now those initiatives exceed the notional funding that is available to them, so we will work through with them what can be funded from the $308,000 that remains for them for their local community.”
