Gascoyne Junction cleans up multiple awards and is named Australia’s Tidy Town for 2023

Gascoyne Junction has swept the competition, claiming the title of Australia’s tidiest town. Winning the 2023 overall tidy town award, Gascoyne Junction has proved its commitment to sustainability and impressed judges in multiple categories. Along with being the overall winner, Gascoyne Junction also won three categories outright at the Keep Australia Beautiful Tidy Towns Sustainability Awards — for litter prevention, for sustainable water use and for community health. And the town, population 70, shared the environmental communication and engagement award with Euroa in Victoria. It was also highly commended in the heritage and culture category. The judging panel described the town as “a true example of what communities can do when focused on strong community, innovative sustainability and self-reliance.” “A very active and dedicated community of volunteers play an enormous role in ensuring Gascoyne Junction flourishes and maintains its standing as a caring and dedicated community,” they said. Shire chief executive John McCleary said it was nice for the town to be recognised for the hard work that goes on. “We don’t do it for awards, we do it because it needs to be done . . . you don’t realise what you do until you start to document throughout the various categories,” he said. “It’s a reward for the work that we do . . . the whole town needs to be congratulated. “The other local governments or other regions put some very good programs in, but I don’t think any had the breadth that we had across the nine categories.”