A new space for Ballarat’s stray and surrendered animals

The new state-of-the-art Regional Animal Facility, which is expected to begin construction in the first half of 2025, is so much more than an updated building. The new animal facility will drastically improve living conditions for the animals inside it and empower staff to expand community programming.

It’s hard to over-state the dedication of Clare Douglas-Haynes and her team at the Ballarat Animal Shelter to the welfare of the region's stray, surrendered and unwanted animals.

However, their work has been made substantially harder by the realities of caring for more than 2,000 dogs, cats, other pets and livestock each year in an old, outdated facility — a re-purposed abattoir building.

“The current facility is so dark and cold and loud,” Clare says.

Without temperature control or much natural light, power outages plunge the facility into darkness.

Plus, with a roof in dire need of repair, wind whistles ferociously through the facility and scares the animals.

“It’s hard to provide that safe haven for the animals in these conditions,” Clare says.

The imminent construction of a new state-of-the-art Regional Animal Facility at Mitchell Park will provide solutions to several substantial challenges shelter staff face when trying to provide the best possible care to the region's stray, surrendered and unwanted animals.

“I think the designs are really amazing,” Clare says.

“We have put animal welfare at the absolute forefront of the designs.” 

Animal shelter staff have had substantial input into the designs of the new facility, which were created by architects Architecture Matters.

A top priority for shelter staff in the design was that the facility be a ‘dirty to clean’ facility. This means new animals to the shelter will enter the facility at one end, receive their vaccinations, microchips and health checks, and then be transitioned into the healthy hold area, and then into adoptions.

“The reason it’s called ‘dirty to clean’ is that we won’t be transferring any disease forward,” Clare says.

“We don’t have that ability at the moment because we can’t properly isolate infected animals.”

Other infection control mechanisms in the new facility design include separate air filtration systems for each cat condo. This means, if a cat gets sick in the new facility, it doesn’t have to be moved out of its pen to isolate from other cats.

An exciting new feature of the new facility is that all the dog pens will have both indoor and

outdoor access.

"Some dogs prefer to stay indoors, but at least they’ll have a choice in the new facility,” Clare says. 

There will also be 14 exercise yards, along with an agility yard and a testing yard.

“Most dogs enjoy getting some fresh air and to lay in the sun. It just does wonders for them,” Clare says.

The new facility would not be possible without the contribution of $11.5 million from the Victorian Government and $3 million from the City of Ballarat.