Normanville is one of the main shopping and cafe districts in the DCY, however, available free shops for new business is lacking. We have the character and heritage building on the southern side of Main Street which we all love, and a supermarket, chemist, post office etc on the north, with other retail close by.

However, what if we need a bigger supermarket, or a bigger hardware store, or 2 or 3 new shops to supply locals and tourists, what will we do then?

Get this wrong, and ALL the businesses in town will suffer.

I recently spent a weekend in the Riverland, a place, where family of mine once lived 20 years ago, and it had been a while since I was there. Staying in Barmera, I was amazed to find the shopping district in the main street virtually closed – there was a small Foodland, and a few other shops, not even open on a Saturday. I go to Berri, to the old shopping area I once knew, and the same thing – everything closed up.

I then found that Berri now has the Riverland Central shopping centre on the outskirts of the town – this has Coles, K Hub, Liquorland and many other standard shopping centre shops, so the locals (and tourists) from
Berri and Barmera (15 min drive) all go to now. Even “The Big Orange” is closed 🙁

The shopping centre has created a shopping vacuum in both Berri and Barmera, and as such the character of both towns has all gone. Once long term shops are now closed, unable to stay open.

Looking at the populations, Berri has 4,200 and Barmera 1,900, so more than our 3 town collective of 3,500, however not that far off. Since we also have 3-4 of parcels of land, where a developer could obtain and build a similar shopping centre, and have Coles etc all move in, why would we need Foodland, or the Chemist,
or Mitre10, or the cafe’s for that matter?

This is not a good solution, and before you say it wouldn’t happen here, it just might.