The Big Cigar, erected in honour of Sir Winston Churchill
- is a town in the Latrobe Valley, located in central Gippsland in the east of Victoria, Australia. The town had a population of 4,588 at the 2006 census, and is part of the Latrobe City local government area. The town was named in honour of former British leader Sir Winston Churchill.
Town history
Churchill began as a service centre for the Hazelwood Power Station and future replacement for Yallourn and Morwell townships. The site was chosen for its pleasant location at the foot of the Strzelecki Ranges, overlooking Hazelwood pondage. It was relatively free from air pollution, is not above rich coalfields and is in close proximity to the larger towns and power stations in the Latrobe Valley.
Construction of Churchill began in 1965, and was sufficiently advanced for the Post Office to open on 11 April 1966. The town was planned with a well defined commercial centre, expansive parklands, a mix of government and privately owned quarter-acre (1,000 m²) town blocks and light industrial estates spaced from residential areas by a belt of parkland. The transport system was to be a network of restricted-access highways and a ring road fully encircling the town. Population was planned to reach 6,000 by 1971, and eventually 40,000 by 2000. However slow development of services and a slowdown of the state of Victoria’s power station construction program meant that Churchill was to never realise its potential, and population reached a modest level of 5500 by the 1991 census, before stabilising at around 5,000. Signs of renewed growth are appearing, with a new housing estate development opening in 2005, the first for some years.
During 2009, the town’s retail precint was referbished, with the Richies IGA supermarket expanded, and a new mall constructed, containing a new Woolworths supermarket and KFC outlet. A proposal has been accepted by Latrobe City for a new hotel to be constructed on the site of the towns former motel, which closed in September 2006, earmarked to become a Safeway supermarket before the planning permit was knocked back by Latrobe City.
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