Hume council will explore new name options for one of Sunbury’s two reserves called the Village Green, citing general confusion for the public and emergency services.
At a council meeting on Monday, May 9, Jacksons Creek Ward councillor and Sunbury resident Jarrod Bell called for council officers to prepare a report exploring ways to rename the reserve currently known as the Village Green in Rolling Meadows.
Cr Bell asked that the report include three aspects: firstly, the process required to change the name, secondly, options for community consultation, and thirdly, the opportunity for the community to suggest a new name “should a change be warranted”.
“In my time as president of Sunbury Festival, where our event is held at the Village Green in the middle of Sunbury, which is the original Village Green, we get 30,000 visitations over two days, [and] 200 stallholders,” Cr Bell said.
“The number of times at 5.30 in the morning, I’ll get a call during a bump-in, when we’ve got a stallholder going ‘I’m at the Village Green, where are you?’, and we’ll go, ‘Well, where are you? Which church are you near?’
“And they’re like, ‘What church are you talking about? There’s no churches here, there’s just houses’… it happens all the time,” Cr Bell said.
He said, “on a more serious note”, that he’d heard of cases of emergency services going to the wrong place, driving past the original Village Green and winding up in Rolling Meadows.
“I think as much as I appreciate the creators of Rolling Meadows Estate, and their intention to homage the actual Village Green, I think it’s done nothing but cause confusion,” Cr Bell said.
Cr Bell also spoke to Star Weekly about the call, and said for him it “doesn’t make any sense” to have not only two, but three locations in Sunbury using the same name – including a street in the town.
“To be brutally honest, [it’s] maybe an opportunity to rename that reserve after someone who is worthy of recognising, or recognising Indigenous culture, I’m really in favour of that” Cr Bell said.
“You don’t get many opportunities to name parks, and one that is such a beautiful park, I think there’s an opportunity there to get rid of that confusion and to honour someone, something or somewhere, that’s maybe a bit more appropriate.”
