[Vision: Rupanyup sign - truck - Welcome to Rupanyup - Cust’s Store]
Rup’s a tiny little town in the Wimmera region of Victoria established in 1870.
[Vision: Main street of Rupanyup]
We’ve got a population of about 530.
Malcolm Uhe - Chair, Enterprise Rupanyup
Rup faces the same sort of problems that most small towns do, and that’s largely driven by population.
[Vision: Pedestrian crossing street - Take Away shop]
It’s very difficult to keep towns going as people come and go.
[Vision: Mother and child walking]
It’s hard to retain the young people in the town.
[Vision: Supermarket]
And then it’s real challenge to keep your infrastructure up and viable.
[Vision: Main street of Rupanyup]
David Matthews - Farmer & Entrepreneur, Enterprise Rupanyup Member
Town amenity is important.
We realise that in our town perhaps the retail offering is below what’s expected.
With a smallish population, maintaining independent segregated businesses can be a challenge.
[Vision: Bendigo Bank]
And the model we wanted to test is to actually start to integrate the businesses, so that they can share a lot of the cost of operation.
[Vision: Tractor travelling down street - Malcolm speaking - main street - shops - chimney - Welcome to Rupanyup sign]
Well, you’re going to see a magnificent development in the main street of Rupanyup, a place where the people of the town can come, not only just to do their shopping, but to meet each other and to socialise and to run activities, and to show that Rupanyup really is a town with pulse.
[Vision: David speaking]
So within the retail complex certainly we want to make sure we have those base businesses, so that’s a supermarket, a pharmacy.
We want to add a bakery to it.
[Vision: Silo artworks]
We think a bakery’s a real attraction to any small town, particularly now that Rupanyup’s on the start of the silo trail.
Every morning now there are many, many vehicles pulling up to start to look at the silo art.
At the moment though, there’s nowhere for them to go to get those fresh pies or pasties or vanilla slices or whatever else that people might want.
Claire Morgan - Proprietor Rupanyup Living, Enterprise Rupanyup Member
My husband and I and our three children moved to Rupanyup.
[Vision: Silo art]
And the silo art started bringing more business to our retail space.
[Vision: Hello business]
The business has grown.
[Vision: Cust’s Store - Hello store - flagging - Claire speaking - Emmetts]
Once we get this we’ll be able to all shop locally and it’s going to offer opportunity for new businesses to come to town and grow our economy.
[Vision: David speaking - Bendigo Bank]
If we can get this model right in Rupanyup, we think that it’s something that could be copied elsewhere in Australia.
[Vision: Malcolm speaking]
The moral of the story is communities can do whatever they have a mind to do if they put their mind to it and work together.
[THE VICTORIAN CONNECTION]
[For more news and stories go to The Victorian Connection - connection.vic.gov.au]
[VICTORIA State Government]
[Speaker: Authorised by Victorian Government, 1 Treasury Place, Melbourne]
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