Historic Ballarat Light Car Club faces uncertain future
Despite 75 years of history, the Ballarat Light Car Club faces an uncertain future with the sudden reality of losing its long-term home within months.
The Ballarat Light Car Club has been told by the City of Ballarat council it must leave the Ballarat Airport base it has enjoyed since 1979 by August 31.
The motorsport club has a long history being originally formed in 1949 as a branch of the Light Car Club of Australia before gaining independence in 1991. Currently the club has around 200 members.
In addition to hosting regular motorkhana and autocross events, the club also stages come and try sessions where inexperienced drivers learn how to come to grips with a car, whilst Motorsport Australia hall of Famer off road star Mark Burrows raced there.
Even considering the challenges of COVID, former Ballarat Light Car Club president Wayne Drew said this is the club’s biggest ever obstacle with a race against time to find a new home and the possibility of the club stopping or closing very real.
“This by far is a bigger challenge than anything including covid, to lose the cause facility of your entity is massive,” Drew told AUTO ACTION.
Ballarat Light Car Club leaders Rod Hall, Wayne Drew, Noel Peers and Ben McKee.
“Yes covid was difficult and a terrible thing but we were still able to interact. That was a challenge but this is much bigger.
“We have been involved in the community in a big way and it is a shame this potentially could be the way it all finishes.
“Without a facility and the ability to conduct your core activity clubs really do risk disappearing, so I really hope someone out there will be able to make some suggestions or offer a solution to help us out.”
Drew explained the reason why the Ballarat Light Car Club must leave its premises due to an airport extension that is being developed by Development Victoria.
However, he is disappointed the club has “been dismissed as irrelevant” and received no support from the council despite being asked to make such a massive move.
“The land that we lease is through the City of Ballarat but actually crown or government land on the edge of the airport,” he said.
“Three or four years ago the City of Ballarat successfully applied for government funding for a runway extension.
“We are part of that process that has not been factored in in any way shape or form.
“We have been dismissed as an irrelevant entity after 45 years of leasing this parcel of land.
The Ballarat Light Car Club at their venue.
“We have to leave by the 31st of August and that in itself creates its own issues because there has been no offer of assistance for temporary residence for all of our equipment or machinery.
“Nothing financially or otherwise to assist with moving everything. Over 45 years a lot of work has been done by a lot of people but when you are a voluntary non for profit entry, you can’t just spend the next three months with 30 people dismantling everything.
“We are losing our facility but we have not been given any assistance in any way shape or form and the shortness of notification makes it really hard.
“We still have a club level series we are trying to get done and then dismantling the buildings and venue is a hell of an ask.
“To make that happen in a two month window is very difficult.”
Whilst the club has been looking for an alternative venue since 2011, including a point working with Motorsport Australia when it was looking for locations for its future Home of Motorsport now hoped to be at Avalon, it is now turning to the public for support.
“We have been looking and there have been options but it was very difficult,” Drew said.
“What we are ideally looking for is that parcel of land that is adjacent to a quarry or highway or railway line or part of a farmer’s land that doesn’t grow anything and is undulating which makes it very much suitable for motorsport.
“Nothing is off the table, we have a 75 year history and it continues to involve the community.
“Time is really against us and appealing to anybody who has that parcel of land to allow us to lease and use for both the short and long term.”
The Ballarat Light Car Club has a Motorkhana and Khanacross event on July 21, which could be the last at Ballarat Airport before it begins to dismantle the venue that holds 45 years of memories.
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