What does Ballarat want out of the budget?
On the eve of the 2018 Victorian Budget The Courier looks at ten projects that are crying out for state government support.
It is a wish-list of capital works aimed at meeting the demands of Ballarat growth.
While by no means exhaustive, this is a list which could help shape our city.
SCHOOLS
A NEW primary school at Lucas and a commitment to expand the Miners Rest Primary School will be two of the key announcements in the state budget.
Ballarat schools are set to benefit from almost $30 million in funding as was announced by Premier Daniel Andrews on April 20.
Other schools set to benefit from the cash splash are Ballarat High School which will receive $4 million and Mount Clear College which will receive $3 million. Stawell Secondary College will also receive $4 million which is part of a $181 million plan to build and refurbish regional schools all across the state.
The new school at Lucas has been a priority for the State Government which recently signed off on the purchase of four hectares of land next to Siena College. The school is expected to be able to be able to accommodate 475 students and is planned to open from term one 2020.
The state opposition has previously committed to building a new school at Miners Rest should it be elected in November. However, the funding committed by the state government is not reliant on an Labor election win and will be made available from July 1.
REGIONAL ANIMAL FACILITY
THE City of Ballarat has asked for $13 million in order to build a new animal shelter in the Ballarat West Employment Zone on Blind Creek Road.
Council has requested the money in order to create a regional shelter which will not only take in Ballarat, but include municipalities including Golden Plains, Pyrenees, Ararat, Hepburn, Central Goldfields and Moorabool shires.
The current facility in Alfredton is outdated and often full. It is hoped a new facility will enhance quality of life and standard care and be able to care for hundreds of lost, stray or unwanted pets until they can find new homes.
Plans have already been lodged for the new site with funding on a two hectare site and is part of the City of Ballarat’s Council Plan 2017-21 and its Domestic Animal Management Plan 2017-21. A feasibility study was completed in March last year with the site “shovel ready” should funding be made available.
Ripon MP Louise Staley has said she would be keen to work with the council and state government to see this become a reality.
EMERGENCY SERVICES HUB
THE recent successful trial of night firebombings in February has renewed calls for the Ballarat Airport to become an Emergency Services hub which could service all of western Victoria.
The City of Ballarat has been lobbying the state government for up to $50 million in funding to upgrade the airport into a major base for emergency services. The $50 million would include $7 million for the upgrade or roads and $43 million for new facilities.
Ballarat Federal MP Catherine King has also thrown her support behind what would need to be a joint, federal, state and local government commitment.
Mayor Samantha McIntosh told The Courier the success of the trial gave the city a “great deal of strength to beef up lobbying”.
“What that means for us is that we know an emergency services hub will provide for our state and our very broad regions the safety and security that is required,” Ms McIntosh said.
“This is an all of emergency services approach and it has had significant attention over a number of years. We’ve fine tuned it, updated it and got it to a stage where it’s ready and the surrounding area is ready for a commitment.
”It is so important that we are prepared for the times of wildfire and other emergencies and have a facility that will cater for those unwanted experiences. We need to be appropriately prepared. Ballarat is absolutely the right place for this.”
LAKE WENDOUREE LIGHTING
THE plan for lighting around Lake Wendouree is well supported by Ballarat residents with 80 per cent believed to back the plan.
The concept has been fronted by a host of Ballarat’s leading sports stars who say the area is a popular training ground which should allow everyone to feel safe.
City of Ballarat has costed the project at $1.8 million, and it has been pushed by Ballarat Councillor Amy Johnson, having waned on and off the council agenda for the past six years.
While the issue is seen at this stage as a council project, a small amount of funds could be directed towards it from the state government given the Ms Johnson would be keen to see it as an election promise in coming months.
BWEZ FREIGHT HUB
A pillar of Ballarat West Employment Zone’s pitch to prospective tenants was access to a state of the art freight hub, with access to road, broad gauge rail and aviation infrastructure.
However as of 2018, 24 hectares of prime industrial land allocated to the project still remains vacant.
Back in 2013 the federal government stumped up $9.1 million across four years but so far just $100,000 of that has been spent on an expressions of interest process.
City of Ballarat is hoping to see about $7 million factored into Treasurer Tim Pallas’ budget to finally get works underway.
“We’ve had a bid in for quite some time with the state government (to deliver) the rail component,” City of Ballarat chief executive Justine Linley said. “It’s not a huge financial commitment in the scheme of things but it effectively opens up BWEZ to containerised rail freight.”
RAIL ELECTRIFICATION TO MELTON
With the Ballarat line’s patronage figures climbing by more than 30 per cent over the past four years, providing a separate service for customers on Melbourne’s urban fringe is fast becoming a non-negotiable.
In the coming two decades the City of Melton is bracing for a mind boggling population boom of 140 per cent, a large slice of whom will also want to work and do business in the CBD.
Both the state and federal peak infrastructure bodies have listed electrification into Melton as a priority which needs to be completed within the next decade.
Capacity constraints within the City Loop mean an extended Melton Metro service could not come online until 2025 at the earliest, but that doesn’t mean planning works couldn’t start to ensure regional and western suburbs commuters get a better service sooner.
While neither Canberra or Spring Street have committed specific money for Melton at this point, this week Premier Daniel Andrews announced $50 million for detailed investigations of fast rail infrastructure upgrades, which factors in electrification into the west.
WASTE TO ENERGY FACILITY
The 2018/19 state and federal budgets present as a final lifeline for City of Ballarat’s long-discussed waste to energy plant.
For about seven years council has lobbied for the meagre government investment of about $2 million,
If neither treasurer sees fit to back the project in the coming fortnight, council will go it alone.
“We’ve been in talks with a number of different consortiums who are more than interested in constructing a waste to energy facility in Ballarat, but we’re not giving up on this budget round.”
BALLARAT LINK ROAD
The fully completed first stage of the Ballarat Link Road project launched on April 23, essentially connecting Remembrance Drive to the Western Freeway.
With stage two already planned to connect to the Glenelg Highway, City of Ballarat is calling on the state government to now fund the $80 million duplication of stage one and new section of road.
The road was conceived by City of Ballarat to reduce truck traffic through Ballarat’s CBD and connect up growth areas like Lucas and Bonshaw Creek. The second stage will also provide a better connection to the Wendouree Station, with Gregory Street West to be reopened under the plan.
Committee for Ballarat connectivity working group chair Nick Beale said he believed the project had the potential to “future-proof” the western part of the city.
“This piece of infrastructure really goes a long way to supporting the population growth to come,” he said.
If funding was approved by the end of this year, City of Ballarat said that detailed design and early works would be finished 2018 and 2019, with construction to start on the project by 2020. The section from the Western Freeway and Glenelg Highway is forecast to be completed by 2021.
While former Labor Premier John Brumby committed $2.5 million to the project, the majority of the $38 million for stage one came from the former Napthine Liberal government in 2013.
HER MAJESTY’S THEATRE
As revealed by The Courier this week, Her Majesty’s Theatre is in a dire state. Structural issues and severe concerns about the foundations mean the doors will remain closed for now.
While carrying out preliminary investigations on the roof in December, engineers needed to place heavy equipment and scaffolding on the stage. But a probe of the building’s foundation showed this could not be done safely.
While it’s unlikely we’ll see any cash for restorations in this budget, City of Ballarat are still calling on the state government to contribute $5 million of the full $20 million necessary to fix and upgrade Her Maj.
Mayor Samantha McIntosh said while they could re-open the doors now without public risk, the opportunity to make changes now while other restorations are ongoing was too good an opportunity.
“We could just fix the roof structure now and open the doors, but we’d have to go back in in a couple of years time,” she said.
“You don’t want to have to go back in another five or 10 years time to do interim works,” Cr McIntosh said.
The composition of the foundations remain a mystery, which presents another problem for the building under the municipality’s control. But the bid for funding in the budget at this late stages means it might be a more fertile election issue come November.
HEALTH
Cash for health is a significant element of any government budget, so a city of Ballarat’s size can expect to see some funding eventually drip down to different health services and public health measures.
But with Ballarat on track to hit a population of 145,000 by 2036, some of our major health services will need to stretch and expand, to accommodate both a mass of people and an ageing population.
Ballarat Health Services, our biggest organisation with more than 4,000 employees, has been appealing to the state government for more money to fit out empty space in newer part of the hospital.
BHS chief executive Dale Fraser told The Courier they wanted funding to build more operating theatres now because the current suite of theatres were running at capacity.
“We hope to get a funding announcement in May’s state budget to give extra theatre capacity. Our theatres are at capacity and when an emergency comes in it bumps elective surgery out,” he said.
“We need to grow with the population or we won’t be able to serve it.”
BHS has shared their business plan for further growth with the state government, including a 12-bed Prevention and Recovery Care mental health facility, caring for patients in the early stages of an acute mental illness or in the early stages of recovery from one.
