Bunbury Visitor Centre to operate out of both CBD and Koombana Bay in 12-month temporary relocation

The Bunbury Visitor Centre will have two homes for the next 12 months in the latest chapter of the tourism hub’s location saga. Councillors on Tuesday night voted to have the centre temporarily split its operations between the CBD-based Bunbury Museum & Heritage Centre and the Dolphin Discovery Centre at Koombana Bay Foreshore. It comes after backlash from the council’s previous decision to move it to Koombana Bay resulted in a special electors’ meeting being called on November 29 and a motion put forward to defer the final call. The original plan was to temporarily relocate the facility to the popular beach, while investigating the feasibility of using the heritage listed Old Railway Station as a potential future location. Despite two locations being chosen for the next year, Bunbury Mayor Jaysen Miguel emphasised it was not going to be used as a trial to redetermine which location is better. “The simplistic thing is that right now, the council decision which has now been deferred for 12 months, was unlikely to have been enacted in terms of in the next six months to get what was proposed as transportable,” he said. “In essence, we would have been maintaining its presence in our admin building, which it has been for some time now. “We’re not going to get to the end of the 12-month period and say there were numbers here and numbers here and base the decision on that. “It’s about a temporary location to gather more information. “If we refer back to the initial report, which we have been basing our decisions on, that actually indicated that having a number of locations or multiple locations is generally a very good thing. “Looking forward to just getting through this one, implementing that and starting to see our visitors getting continued service.” Local business owner and Retail Co vice-president Megan Gianfrancesco said while residents partly achieved what they wanted, she still believed the Visitor Centre belongs in the CBD. “The heart of the city is where your visitors come and with the activation of the CBD, the beautiful stores and our art gallery, our motor museum and our walkways, that’s where you want your tourists to be,” she said. “We don’t want them directed away from the CBD because they may not come back. “You can’t guarantee that if they get directed 1.5km away that they’ll come back and what about the people that arrived on the train and the bus? “It just doesn’t make any logical sense.” In August, councillors voted to move the Bunbury Visitor Centre to a location on the Koombana Bay Foreshore. A motion to revoke the decision in September was lost, sparking debate among Bunbury residents and business owners within the public gallery.