Police are investigating $15,000 of missing ratepayers' money after a Sebastopol heritage project failed to materialise.
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The City of Ballarat council granted the sum more than two years ago to the Sebastopol Historical Society to allow it to install "interpretive signs" around an old historical mining site just off Grant Street.
After receiving an anonymous tip-off, The Courier has checked the amount and timing of the funding, and confirmed that none of the signs have been installed. In fact, as far as can be established, none of the $15,000 has gone towards the project.
The funding was granted in February 2017 as part of the council's Engaging Communities Program for Sebastopol, which ran from 2016 until mid way through 2017.
There was $200,000 allocated to the program, which aimed to help grassroots projects that "reflected a wide cross section of the community". A Sebastopol Community Panel was established to seek projects and allocate funds.
They are now all complete or under way - with the exception of the Sebastopol Historical Society's mining site sign project.
A member of the historical society said they were working with council and police but were unable to make any further comment while an investigation was ongoing.
The City of Ballarat's Engaging Communities Program has a stringent procurement and acquittal process that revealed the correct process hadn't been followed in this instance. That has now led to an ongoing police investigation.
- City of Ballarat spokesperson
The site in question is the Central Plateau #2 Mine in Grant Street, Sebastopol. Back in 2016, the mineshaft near the ruined buildings of the former mining operation had to re-sealed after a timber cap rotted away.
The mineshaft is reportedly at least 254 metres deep, while the mine itself was the last to be open in Sebastopol.
It is thought to have stopped operating around 1914 due to low gold yields and a diminished workforce due to the outbreak of the First World War.
"The City of Ballarat's Engaging Communities Program has a stringent procurement and acquittal process that revealed the correct process hadn't been followed in this instance," a spokesperson for the City of Ballarat Council said.
"That has now led to an ongoing police investigation."
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