Every country town has at least one building that lies abandoned or underutilised which could be turned into a house or unit that could attract another worker or family to the community.

We have old train stations and roads boards buildings, there are abandoned shops in the main street, empty pubs, unused halls, even farmhouses close to town left to deteriorate.

If regional communities are serious about surviving population decline, then they need to accept that investors are not going to flock to build a $400,000 house on a block of land worth $50,000 that has no future capital gain upside.

And forget about convincing skilled workers to accept a rental in the old state housing asbestos houses on the wrong side of the tracks. You don’t want to live in them and neither do they.  

So can we collectively lean on our local councillors, the Minister for regional development and the opposition parties to come up with a ‘Regional Renovate to Rent’ program to allow communities to tap a rolling $15m fund to redevelop at least one property in every town every year until 2030 to fill the rental gap?

Forty towns given $400,000 a year to turn a underutilised building into quality accommodation will help save our heritage and put another apprentice or family into the community.