At Wednesday night’s meeting, Cr Des Hudson called for a report into the proposed depth of the pool – two weeks after the contract was awarded to Ballarat firm Nicholson Constructions.

In the press release to announce the contract, the council stated works would begin in March.

Given these circumstances, it’s astonishing that there continues to be formal consideration for a change in the design of the pool.

However, most bewildering was that no other councillors, nor executives, saw fit to comment or challenge in the public meeting why a potential change could, or should, be considered at such a late stage.

How can there be no query of the process, no question of how much it might cost to change the project at this stage or no discussion of the potential implications for the contractor in light of the contract having already been signed?

The depth of the pool is crucial in determining its use, with a uniform depth as advocated by Cr John Burt providing potential to attract state or national aquatic events. Surely determining its core use should have been resolved long before now.

The pool is one of the most significant, and controversial, projects on the council’s books. It was part of a significant package of investments slated in last year’s council budget which also contained a rate rise of 7.5 per cent and predicted $25 million in loans.

It is crucially important the project runs smoothly and is a positive for the city and ratepayers, particularly in light of the criticism of still stuttering major projects such as the Civic Hall site redevelopment and the Ballarat saleyards relocation.

Cr Hudson, a member of the pool advisory committee that supported a variable depth pool, didn’t miss his target when speaking to The Courier this week: “I would have thought there was every opportunity for those particular points of view when the item came into the chamber two weeks ago and councillors formally adopted the tender for Nicholson, not at the 11th hour when the contractor is about to take possession of the site.”

The question is, who is prepared to take charge on this issue?

Digital divide is now a huge chasm

THERE’S a sting in the tail for those opposing infrastructure to support expansion of the National Broadband Network in the Ballarat region – you may well be impacting the future sale of your house.

Questions are already being asked of real estate agents regarding access to high speed broadband.

It makes sense – the connected world, so central to the way we live and do business, relies heavily on the technology available.

We crave information and we want it five minutes ago.

The digital divide that was so robustly denied during the election campaign will be a stark reality across the nation.

In some areas, including large blocks of Ballarat, the NBN will be delivered fibre-to-the-premises. In other areas, fixed wireless towers are approved or proposed. In some parts of Australia, the existing copper network will be used.

It’s a miss-mash of options designed to reduce the cost of the former Labor government’s policy of delivering elite internet speeds to all Australians.

While there will be continued interest in the new federal government’s rollout of the NBN, on a local level it will be intriguing to see how opposition to fixed towers is perceived and handled.

A case in point is residents in the Buninyong and Mt Helen areas who have fervently opposed two tower applications in recent times.

Ballarat’s NBN map is now bare from Mount Clear through to Buninyong and looks likely to stay that way at least in the short term.

Does the lack of the NBN have the potential to be a determining factor in house sales in comparison to other areas of Ballarat where the network is being rolled out via fibre to the premises? Will it impact on house prices in these areas? Will it be a negative for new business?

These same suburbs already face major issues with peak morning and afternoon road traffic, so there’s plenty at stake.

This issue has the potential to be extremely divisive, particularly as there seems to be little cost-effective method of delivering fibre-to-the-premises technology to a significant proportion of residents in the identified suburbs.

Most interesting that such a discussion is relevant when at the centre of growth and innovation in the same suburbs is Federation University and the Ballarat Technology Park.

This is the great digital divide.