St John eyes park section in sub centre expansion

St John Ambulance Kojonup is planning to acquire a small section of Hillman Park to expand its sub centre building on Albany Highway.

Hillman Park is listed under the Shire’s Heritage Inventory because of its cultural heritage significance to the community.

The additional land would increase the sub centre size to about 1290sqm.

St John Ambulance Kojonup is planning to use the extra space to build an additional parking space, as well as offices and training facilities.

St John Kojonup chairman Rob Cowie submitted the request during the most recent council meeting.

“Currently, we’re a little bit tight in training space — we got some space in the shed where the ambulances are parked, but there’s hardly any room for offices,” he said.

“We are sort of looking to the future — maybe in a few more years we’ll be able to have more members and the extra space would be greatly needed.”

Because of the park’s cultural importance to the community, the council agreed to seek public consul-tation before making any decision.

Mr Cowie said the Kojonup Shire would seek public consultation and advertise it widely on the Shire website, local paper and community notice boards.

Hillman Park is named in honour of surveyor Alfred Hillman who undertook the first official survey of the land and route from King George Sound Albany to the Swan River Settlement in Perth.

St John Ambulance Kojonup has 14 active volunteer members from the commu-nity and have attended about 300 call-outs and spor-ting events in Kojonup each year.