The future of the B-24 Liberator Memorial has been secured, with the restoration group given a permanent home in Werribee.
Last week, the state government guaranteed the B-24 Memorial Restoration Fund a permanent home at its hangar on the corner of Princes Highway and Farm Road at Werribee.
This followed years of uncertainty for the Fund group, who in 2012 feared it would be forced out of the hangar by site owner Melbourne Water to make way for the Places Victoria Riverwalk development.
Assistant Treasurer Gordon Rich-Phillips said the government had signed a land transfer agreement with Melbourne Water and the group, securing the transfer of about
1.4 hectares of land to the restoration fund.
Mr Rich-Phillips said the agreement paved the way for the preservation and enhancement of the site’s aviation heritage.
The B-24 group has called the hangar home since 1993, restoring the southern hemisphere’s only remaining WWII B-24 Liberator bomber.
“I welcome the continued restoration of the B-24 Liberator as an important and proud piece of Victoria’s aviation heritage,” Mr Rich-Phillips said,
“The hangar has a timber roof truss constructed with short, unseasoned timbers, which was developed at the time due to the shortage of building material during World War II.”
The B-24 Liberator aircraft and its hangar received Engineers Australia heritage markers in July.
B-24 fund secretary Judith Gilbert said the group was planning to build a museum complex on the site. “We have a blueprint for the complex,” she said. “The first stage will be to build a memorial wall. The second stage is hopefully a new building to put the Liberator in and refurbish the existing hangar where we will build smaller planes that were used before the Liberator.”
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