Tru Energy inherited the lookout site when the SEC was privatised. Over the past decade the lookout was allowed to deteriorate and eventually reached a point where Tru Energy had no option but to close it to the public. A couple of years ago, discussions began to take place between Latrobe City Council and Tru Energy regarding the transfer of the land to council as public land. Tru Energy gave the land to council around the middle of 2009 after demolishing the existing lookout structure. Tru Energy also contributed $10,000 towards the construction of a replacement lookout structure with council covering the rest of the cost.
Alan Cox writes, “I volunteered to project manage the design and construction of the new lookout structure as the site is significant to me as one of the last remaining pieces of my childhood and of Yallourn. Unfortunately the design was limited in budget and in the fact that the structure had to have compliant disabled access. This meant that the structure could never be a highly elevated structure like the original tower. I’ve tried in the design of the structure to create something that would have looked at home in the town but most importantly I wanted to incorporate the original directional plaque that I’m sure everyone remembers from the top of the old tower and eventually found the plaque in the Tru Energy workshops at Yallourn W Power Station. Tru Energy paid all the expenses involved when making an exact replica at a foundry in Dandenong.
(Photo attached)