Vision: External view of the Ballarat West Employment Zone signage.
Daniel Moloney - Mayor, City of Ballarat
'The Ballarat West Employment Zone is really uniquely located.'
Text: A $30 million initiative between the Victorian Government and the City of Ballarat.
'It’s already pretty close to MARS and McCain’s, but also adding to that that it’s really close to a major highway, the Western Highway, to a railway line through to Ararat, Melbourne and beyond, but also to a runway as part of an expanded airport.'
Vision: View of businesses in the Ballarat West Employment Zone.
Text: Set on 400 hectares of industrial land for large-scale businesses.
'We’ve seen a whole range of different businesses.'
'There’s a couple of big transport operators, there’s grain, we’re also about to see George Western Foods move there in coming years.'
Vision: Luv-A-Duck sign and factory building.
Luv-A-Duck is also another success story as well.
Vision: View of Luv-A-Duck staff working in the factory packing food.
'Most of these businesses are businesses that have been experiencing growth in regional Victoria already and are now looking for bigger sites.'
Vision: External view of the Luv-A-Duck building.
'So, having a location that’s going to be beside an expanded runway for the airport, and also next to the Western Highway gives them great reach into all of Australia and beyond.'
Text: Contributing to more than 600 jobs across a range of sectors.
Vision: View of the Luv-A-Duck entrance to office and staff working in the factory. View of packaging machine in the factory.
James Thompson - CEO, Luv-A-Duck
'The Luv-A-Duck family business started planning for the new value-added facility around four or five years ago, and after a period of time in looking at its existing plant and location at Nhill decided that it was outgrowing it’s value-added operation at Nhill and decided to actually build a stand-alone facility here in Ballarat.'
Vision: View of machinery in factory packaging food and the Luv-A-Duck sign. View of Luv-A-Duck staff working in the factory packing food.
'Well, there was 70 staff employed at this facility so something like in excess of $6 million a year in wages that our 70 staff and families are spending across the Ballarat community.'
'And all our staff engage with the local community, their children go to the local schools, participate in the local sport activities, so they become very much, and they are very much a part of the Ballarat community.'
Vision: View of Luv-A-Duck staff working in the factory packing food.
Daniel Moloney - Mayor, City of Ballarat
'Already we’re seeing just over 100 new jobs that have come to that area, but the exciting thing is actually what’s about to come with a forecast for another 500 jobs for this precinct.'
Vision: View of Luv-A-Duck staff working in the factory packing food. External view of the Luv-A-Duck building.
'Having that strength in the manufacturing sector in Ballarat has really been one of the stables throughout the pandemic that’s ensured that we’ve been able to get through these tougher times when tourism has struggled for instance, we’ve really seen that strength continue.'
The Victorian Connection, people, communities and the economy. For more news and stories go to connection.vic.gov.au
Victoria State Government / Delivering for Victoria. Authorised by the Victorian Government, 1 Treasury Place, Melbourne
For the full article please refer back to An engine room for growth in regional Victoria
