Dean Purkis, Director Recovery Programs, Emergency Management Victoria:
We're here at the Great Victorian Rail Trail, which is a pretty impressive community asset. 150,000 people a year use this trail and it's just a beautiful place to be.
It was quite significantly impacted by the bushfires that came through in January, but we're doing a fair bit of work at the moment to cut back the trees or cut down the trees, which are identified as not safe by arborists, and then we remove those and they get reused for other purposes in the local area.
It means that it's really the first step in reopening the trail for use. With the January fires, the trail was basically cut off right in the heart or the central part of the trail.
Ben Harnwell, Manager of Economic Development, Murrindindi Shire Council:
So in Murrundindi, we've actually just had 400 tonnes of damaged trees removed from the trail. And it's great to see Emergency Management Victoria come to the front and support the cleanup, the first step to rehabilitating the trail.
We see visitors in the tens of thousands coming along the trail every year. The fact that we've lost the total middle part of the trail has really impacted businesses along the trail, but also for our local residents, just to exercise and exercise is really important, especially post-recovery.
We're now coming out of winter and the beautiful sunshine, so people want to get back out again. They want to start exercising. At the moment they can only go so far and this is only the first leg and we're looking forward to opening more and more as we go.
Dean Purkis, Director Recovery Programs, Emergency Management Victoria:
Every emergency is different and every situation is unique, and part of listening is making sure we're focusing on the things that are important to community. This is a very important community asset, and we are honoured, really, to be able to have a chance to to make this sort of difference.
[Emergency Management Victoria logo]
[End transcript]
Updated