Luxury hotel for Murrumbateman

Last Thursday, promoter Graeme Shaw and CH Corporation deputy chairman JC Cheak met at the Yass Valley Visitor Information Centre to sign the document after the venture was approved by council.

Mr Shaw was introduced to the CH Corporation and Mr Cheak two years ago by the ACT Government and in that time has formed a close business relationship with the international hospitality group. As a result Mr Shaw has been able to push the interests of the valley.

Indeed, the corporation's high opinion of the Murrumbateman businessman was one of the motivating factors behind their decision to invest in the shire in the first place.

"The reason [for choosing Murrumbateman is] we've got good confidence in Mr Shaw because he has been really great at promoting Murrumbateman to us," Mr Cheak told the Tribune.

"We know Murrumbateman is a cool climate winery region and we can see there's a vacuum there that we can fill.

"It's going to be a great hotel that we'll put up at Mr Shaw's development along the Murrumbateman area and I just want to thank Mr Shaw and Yass tourism for giving such cooperation in this great opportunity."

Mr Shaw said although there is still red tape, the development is now "on the way".

"We've had a number of discussions on a number of different areas of potential mutual business and now that this development has been finally approved at council we can really go forward and make some positive moves and hopefully get the whole tourism side of our development up and running.

"We still have to go through the DA (Development Application) process for the commercial part of the site and while I'm working on other parts of the site JC's company can be looking at the detail and design issues of the hotel site. So hopefully we'll mesh together and lodge a combined DA."

Also present at the Heads of Agreement signing was Yass Valley Council's Tourism manager Sean Haylan.

"We've got some nice, small boutique accommodation in and around the Murrumbateman area, and obviously we've got some nice country hotels in Yass itself but to be able to have a four-star resort style hotel over at Murrumbateman is just fantastic," Mr Haylan said.

"I think the opportunity to drag overnight visitors from the ACT into the Yass Valley has got to be a positive. It also certainly fits with Destination NSW objectives as well, as it will increase overnight visitors to regional NSW."

Mr Cheak was unable to provide an accurate opening date but did say it would be as soon as possible.