The Indigo Shire in north-east Victoria is ramping up its campaign to redraw the boundary between itself and the Rural City of Wangaratta.
Indigo wants to reclaim land that belonged to the United Shire of Beechworth before council amalgamations in the 1990s.
It said the land, largely occupied by winemakers, was culturally and geographically connected with Beechworth.
Wangaratta administrators said they had met a “focus group” of residents, who did not support any change, and had dismissed the plan.
However, Indigo Mayor Bernard Gaffney said residents did support the change and he would take their concerns to the State Government.
“Be very sure that a large number of people from the area we’re talking about have approached councillors in Indigo Shire,” he said.
“We’re talking about people who live on the doorstep of Beechworth and yet live 30 to 40 kilometres from Wangaratta. It makes no sense.
“We’ve spoken to Wangaratta once, they’ve told us now three times that they’re not interested, I’m not surprised of that.
“This is the process that the officer of the Minister for Local Government advised us to take and we’ll start taking other steps from now on.”