Woodford will be more walkable with help from the Victorian Government's Tiny Towns Fund and the Warrnambool City Council.
The project involves formalising a car park near the Woodford Primary School to create 15 new parking bays (including one accessible bay), constructing a new concrete footpath between this newly formalised car park and the school, and transforming the existing service road into a shared zone that links up to the existing footpath in the east, which runs all the way to the Hopkins Highway.
The shared zone will have a 20km/h speed limit for vehicles, three speed humps, and additional lighting.
Council successfully applied for a $50,000 grant via the Tiny Towns Fund, which will be combined with $70,000 in Council funding to complete the project.
Member for Western Victoria Jacinta Ermacora MP said that this was a fantastic project to be able to support.
"I just want to congratulate the school and the school community and the Council for being able to bring this together and I think it's a very clever initiative to bring together the Tiny Towns Fund for this kind of project," she said.
"It's just another example of how the Council, the State Government and a community can work together to come up with a solution that is going to make an enormous amount of sense."
Warrnambool Deputy Mayor Vicki Jellie thanked the Victorian Government for helping to fund the project.
"It will benefit the school especially, but it will also benefit the whole community. The whole community has wanted this because they will then be able to walk up further, use it as a bike path, so it's safety for everyone," she said.
"We want a healthy environment for everyone, especially around schools, so this will have a great impact."
Woodford Primary School Principal Daniel Watson welcomed the investment.
"It will be a good, safe, connecting pathway for the children to be able to access the car park, but then also hopefully up into the next part of the footpath (on Bridge Road)," he said.
"I'll sleep a little bit easier at night knowing the kids are coming to and from school safely.
"We've only got a little carpark, so we want them to get dropped up the road if they live a little bit far away.
"But we have our walk to school day, ride to school days too. So there are certain times that we have nearly the whole school walking or riding to school, so it's going to be fantastic for the kids to get to and from school much more safely."
With funding secured, design work will now be finalised, with a timeframe for delivery to be developed in consultation with Woodford Primary School with the aim of minimising disruptions.
