Ballarat City Council meeting recap

Wednesday evening at Ballarat City Council’s regular July meeting, Councillors considered a number of items: 

Final Community Infrastructure Plan 

The City of Ballarat has strengthened its commitment to creating a more fair and equitable future for residents by adopting a new Community Infrastructure Plan. 

The Plan will guide future planning and decision making around investment in facilities to ensure the equitable, efficient, and sustainable provision of high-quality community infrastructure that meets community’s current and future needs. 

With an explicit focus on vulnerable areas of the city and improving access to services for all community members, the plan sets out the pathways for the City of Ballarat to ensure everyone in our city has access to the services, opportunities, and programs they need.  

Draft Youth Strategy  

A new document highlighting the importance of listening to the young people of Ballarat will be on exhibition for feedback following the July City of Ballarat Council meeting.  

The Draft Youth Strategy 2022 – 2026 is an important strategic document to support the planning and delivery of infrastructure, services, programs, and events for young people in the municipality aged 12 – 25 years old.  

A diverse group of 11 young people were engaged as Youth Co-designers to actively support and guide the development of the Youth Strategy. Their involvement supported further consultation and engagement with other young people, internal staff, sector stakeholders and the broader community.  

The voice of young people has been empowered through the co-designer and community engagement process. This aligns to principles of the Positive Youth Development Framework – Leadership and Decision Making, Inclusive Ethos. 

The Strategy has a particular focus on improving outcomes for young people through five key areas of; Health and Wellbeing, Connected Community, Living and Learning, Safety, and Youth Infrastructure, Sector Leadership and Partnerships.  

The new Draft Youth Strategy 2022 – 2026 will be on exhibition for community feedback until 29 August 2022 via council’s online mySay portal. 

Wendouree West Community Hub  

Council has noted a contract variation for the Wendouree West Community Hub construction project. 

In April, excavation works on the Wendouree West Recreation Reserve building site uncovered asbestos pipe and industrial waste, including asphalt, concrete kerbs, rocks and paving. 

The emergency soil remediation works have increased the contract value by $2 million. An existing contingency budget has left a project shortfall of $1.5 million. 

The contract was awarded to Plan Group for $4,763,830 in December 2021. At the time, the project was funded through $7 million from State Government, $1.3 million from the Federal Government’s Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Fund, with $385,000 funded by the City of Ballarat.  

The $8,685,000 project budget will increase to $10,185,000 to cover this contract variation. 

Lake Wendouree and Victoria Park Link Lighting  

Council has approved a budget increase of $370,000 for the Lake Wendouree and Victoria Park Link Lighting project. 

The budget increase is due to pricing increases in materials consistent with escalations seen across the construction industry since the tender was submitted in December 2021, costs incurred due to requirements under the Interim Protection Order and Heritage Permit, and flow-on additional costs involved in delivering the project.  

The Lake Wendouree and Victoria Park Link Lighting project will deliver lighting along the Steve Moneghetti Track around Lake Wendouree and also deliver lighting along Morrison Street, which will link Lake Wendouree to nearby Victoria Park. 

The Lake Wendouree and Victoria Park Link Lighting project has been jointly funded by the State Government ($2,500,000) and the City of Ballarat ($300,000). 

The budget increase takes the City of Ballarat’s contribution to $670,000. 

Draft Governance Rules  

Council is considering changes to the Governance Rules to provide for meeting attendance by electronic means to be recorded and for meetings to be conducted remotely in line with recent amendments to the Local Government Act 2020. 

The Draft Governance Rule changes will be available for public comment on mySay from 28 July 2022 to 12 August 2022.