Mental health the biggest impact from loss of Warrnambool saleyards: farmer

Warrnambool councillors voted 4-3 on Monday to shut the facility by June 30 next year.

Greenham's buyer Andrew Wilson said it was disappointing the yards were closing.

"It's another market. It's another avenue to buy cattle from. That's all we do, we buy cattle and process cattle. So it's disappointing it's closed," Mr Wilson said.

He said he believed when the yards closed, the bulk of the cattle would go to Warrnambool's Midfield Meat factory, Camperdown or Mount Gambier saleyards.

Mr Wilson estimated 30 to 40 per cent would go direct to Midfield, the bulk of the dairy cows would go to Camperdown, and people from the other side of Port Fairy would go to Mount Gambier.

He said 10 to 15 per cent might end up going to the Mortlake saleyards.

Yarpturk's Janet Williams said the biggest impact from the saleyards closing would be on mental health.

"Mental health is going through the roof. This is only going to concrete it," she said.

"I think the biggest impact will be on the farmers. They won't have anywhere to come and see people. They don't go to picnic in the park. Farmers don't do that sort of thing, they do this - store sales."

Mrs Williams said they were now wondering what they would do because when the saleyards closed there would be no calf sales. "Farming started Warrnambool. It's what it was built on. It still needs it," she said.

Nirranda farmer Colin Dumesny said what the saleyards brought to the community had been "grossly underestimated". Mr Dumesny said the councillors blamed previous councils for the deterioration of the facility, but they "had the chance the right the wrongs but chose not to do so".

"It's a ludicrous decision to actually even consider closing the saleyards," he said.

Mr Dumesny also feared it would be 10 to 12 years before the site could be cleared. "It will cost them way more money to close the saleyards than it would cost to keep them open," he said.

Retired stock agent Rob McCrabb said it was a very subdued mood out at the yards at the Wednesday sales.

"The shock factor has not quite settled in. It's very subdued today," he said.

Mr McCrabb said the facility had been allowed to deteriorate over the years.

"It should have had maintenance done when they were making a decent profit," he said.

Mr McCrabb said the disappointing thing that came out of Monday's council meeting was that councillors acknowledged that the money had not been put back in to the saleyards.

"What they failed to mention was that the agents and the farmers in the district are paying the penalty for their inactivity and I don't think that's fair," he said.

He said he still came to the yard for a coffee and a chat.

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