Mayor's Message - Friday 18 November 2022

As Mayor of Ballarat, I am motivated to keep a focus on the basics of our service delivery and exploring ways in which we can continuingly improve them. One of the ways to achieve this is through enabling our community to have a voice to help shape our path forward.  

The mySay.ballarat.vic.gov.au website is the City of Ballarat’s online platform that provides you the opportunity to have your say and this week sees two very important areas about budget and kerbside waste collection that I would encourage people to have a look at. 

Behind Council’s operation, sits a budget, carefully and strategically developed to help manage nearly 100 services as well as over $2 billion in assets. We would like to invite your input towards the development of the City of Ballarat 2023/24 Annual Budget. By identifying your priorities within the Council Plan 2021-2025 we will be able to inform the actions and plans developed for next year’s budget.  

The second opportunity is about your preference for waste collection. Do you want to see a new purple-lid kerbside bin for glass, or do you prefer the Pass on Glass drop-off system? Are you likely to place your food waste in the green waste bin as part of a new combined food organics and garden organics (FOGO) kerbside collection? Or are your bins a good size and how often would you like to see your waste and recycling collected?  

These are some of the questions that the City of Ballarat is asking our community to help shape the future of our kerbside waste and recycling collections.  

Under the Circular Economy (Waste Reduction and Recycling) Act 2021, all Victorian councils must introduce a FOGO collection for all households by 2030 and a separate glass recycling collection by 2027.  

The community’s feedback will help guide future decision-making and planning on kerbside services as part of our Draft Kerbside Transition Plan.  

Both the budget and the Kerbside Transition Plan are two critical areas where we would love your input, so please, have your say on the mySay webpage.  

Mayor  

Cr Des Hudson