29/10/2025
Residents in Chewton are fuming after discovering Mount Alexander Shire Council had quietly approved a plan to rename part of Eureka Street to Dingo Park Road – without any apparent consultation.
Locals quickly rallied, circulating a petition that was presented at the October council meeting. The minutes show the council merely “acknowledged receipt” of the petition and pushed the issue back to December.
Translation: no answers yet, just bureaucracy doing what bureaucracy does best – buying time.
The outrage isn’t hard to understand. Eureka Street isn’t some new cul-de-sac; it’s a piece of local history, named long before the nearby dingo sanctuary existed.
One resident who’s lived there for nearly seventy years pointed out, “It was Eureka Street long before the dingo park was there.”
Even Jirrahlinga Dingo Conservation & Wildlife Education Centre – the organisation supposedly being “honoured” – wasn’t consulted.
In a public statement, they backed the residents entirely: “We fully support the Eureka Street residents and that Eureka Street remains as is,” they wrote. “Had we been approached, we would have willingly signed the petition.”
They also reminded everyone that they’ve been waiting since 2006 for proper tourist signage from the shire – a promise that, nineteen years later, still hasn’t been delivered.
Many locals are calling the whole thing another example of poor communication and council arrogance. “Council don’t care about residents, only pro-development,” said one woman who’s lived there her entire life.
Others questioned why anyone thought naming a road after a private wildlife business – one accused of charging an entry fee – was appropriate at all.
Residents also raised the practical fallout: the time and money needed to update legal documents, addresses, licences, and bills. “Will council fork out the cost for all those residents to change their address?” one asked.
The council’s defenders claim the renaming decision actually came from “a bureaucrat in Melbourne,” not the local chamber – but several residents aren’t buying it.
As one put it, “How do you think the people in Melbourne got the idea in the first place?” And really, it’s a fair question. These things don’t appear out of thin air – someone in the local system usually plants the seed.
Yet again, Mount Alexander Shire finds itself facing an angry community and a credibility problem that could’ve been avoided with a single letterbox drop or phone call.
As one frustrated commenter summed it up: “Add a bloody blue tourist sign saying Dingo Sanctuary like caravan parks have… makes it more clear than this nonsense.”
For now, the final decision’s been punted to the December meeting – but the damage to trust might take a lot longer to fix.
