Mayor’s Message – Friday 4 March

I was pleased to announce the City of Ballarat is investing $3.4 million to improve our network’s sealed roads.  

I know you’re as frustrated by damaged roads and potholes as we are, so we have been working hard throughout summer to fix as many of our roads as possible before winter kicks in. 

Unfortunately our roads are being damaged by a combination of their age, increased traffic and wet weather.  

It takes significant funding and planning each year to maintain our roads, with major patching works carried out on about 150 roads across Ballarat annually. However, we have listened to your concerns, and we are working hard to keep our local roads as safe for you as possible. 

Meanwhile autumn is now here, and with it comes the autumn edition of ourballarat magazine.  

The Art Gallery of Ballarat features as our cover story for this edition. As the oldest regional gallery in Australia, it houses a remarkable collection testament to Ballarat’s creative heart.  

The gallery also plays a vital role in our city’s visitor economy and will attract hundreds of thousands of people to Ballarat as our city continues to recover from the pandemic’s economic impact.  

However, this heritage-listed building, which opened in 1890, requires government investment for works that will modify its skylights with LED panels and upgrade the humidification system.  

In this autumn edition of ourballarat, we call on funding from state or federal governments to help us deliver these upgrades to bring the gallery building into line with contemporary standards.  

This package of upgrades will not only support the gallery’s nationally significant collection, it will also improve the experience for visitors and help to attract major exhibitions to Ballarat.  

Read all this and more in ourballarat autumn – arriving in your letterbox soon.