Despite a massive announcement already, there is a sense of resignation in the run-up to this year's Victorian state budget, with several major projects wrapping up and others years from beginning.
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The state government has headlined this year's allocation for the city with a $1 billion contract for train manufacturer Alstom, but the city's leaders are hoping other projects and initiatives will receive support, particularly given Ballarat's rapid population growth and building boom.
The Ballarat Link Road's second stage, the duplication of Dyson Drive to Carngham Road, is perennially mentioned as a priority for the city, but this year City of Ballarat mayor Daniel Moloney said if the project did not get funding this year, council will take a fresh approach for next year's budget and the elections which will follow.
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"It made sense for (Dyson Drive) to be a local council road for a long time, but our argument now is that it needs to be reclassified as an arterial road, which is when it will start to attract more funding," he said.
"Basically, what we'll keep seeing is the story of 1000-plus cars per year going into our western suburbs without the arterial roads, they're all being thrown onto local roads currently.
"Dyson Drive should become an arterial road managed by RRV - that will be a push you'll see from us throughout this year.
"There was no Lucas when I first ran for council in 2012, it was only a small number of houses in 2016 when I ran, then in 2020, it's this huge, important area."
Also on the road front, Commerce Ballarat chief executive Jodie Gillett said she hoped Mair Street would receive more money to fully complete works and alleviate pressure for traders sick of construction.
Emerging from the pandemic, she added business support programs remain a priority.
"We're very much hoping funding for the Partners in Wellbeing will be extended through to the end of June 2022," she said.
"With these courses being offered free, the takeup from our business community has been really high - they're embracing it, and we want to see that continued investment into support and development for the business community."
Committee for Ballarat chief executive Michael Poulton said fast rail and improving Ballarat station must be on the agenda, but agreed the focus will be more on next year's budget.
"There's an opportunity in this budget to really do some master planning work (on the station) and develop it so this time next year, or in the pre-election process, there's something to announce," he said.
"We'll be looking at the budgets very carefully to see if the Western Rail Plan is mentioned at all, it'll be interesting to see what comes out of it."
Other big projects Ballarat will have its eye on include support for a new materials recovery facility, to take the pressure off the city's landfill, and a new animal shelter.
Cr Moloney said land had already been allocated in the Ballarat West Employment Zone for the materials recovery facility, and council had committed funding to it, but so far it hasn't progressed out of early planning stages.
The hope is for more money to come from the state government, as part of their circular economy policy - if it's not allocated as part of the budget, council will push harder, he added.
"Later this year, we'll be asking for a specific redirection of part of that to help set up that waste recovery centre, because ultimately, that fund they supposedly created to stop throwing so much waste in the hole, we have a solution for it," he said.
The push will be data-driven, he added - given Ballarat's incredibly rapid growth, any population statistics from five years ago is woefully out of date, which distorts how bureaucrats make decisions and allocate funding.
"We're doing a bit of work with the Victorian Planning Authority, and (council's chief executive) Evan (King) has literally driven around executives from the VPA to show them the growth and how dated some of the data is that people are working with," Cr Moloney said.
"This is not a unique problem to Victoria - a lot of regional centres are having a lot of trouble right now because data is five or six years old, and the need for contemporary, live population data is critical.
"As a result, we're seeing a lag effect in all of our municipalities to get state and federal funding, because quite rightly, you'd expect a bureaucrat to be looking at what they see as the most contemporary data - but they don't know it's five years out of date, and we have a completely different city to five years ago."
A good example is council's need for a new animal shelter, which Animal Justice Party MLC Andy Meddick has also called for.
A $14 million commitment for a new site and facility would help volunteers do even more in a growing city, Cr Moloney said, as council has been able to track the number of new pet registrations.
"It's incredible what the staff have been able to achieve there with such limited resources, and they're having to look after a much bigger region than just the City of Ballarat," he said.
"It'll range from the obvious like dogs and cats, but also livestock needs, especially when we have moments of crisis like fires and floods.
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"We need to have better facilities, so we can cope with all these new houses being built - they're bringing a dog and a cat with them a lot of the time as well.
"Each of these 1000-plus new houses (each year), with a car, with a dog or a cat - the demand and pressure just keeps going."
State Treasurer Tim Pallas will hand down the 2021-22 budget at 1pm Thursday - keep an eye on The Courier's website to see what's announced as it happens.
WHAT HAVE THEY PROMISED FOR US IN THE BUDGET SO FAR?
Contrasting previous years, there have only been two official leaks for Ballarat projects in the run-up to this year's state budget.
On Tuesday, acting Premier James Merlino and Public Transport Minister Ben Carroll were in town to announce $968 million to build 25 new metropolitan trains at the Ballarat Alstom facility on Creswick Road, continuing more than a hundred years of train manufacturing at the site.
The week before, Mr Carroll chose a new set of traffic lights on Sturt Street to announce $10.5 million to reopen Lydiard Street's level crossing to traffic, with boom gates to replace the heritage-style gates.
While heritage advocates have fumed at the decision, others said they were concerned planning timelines remain unknown for the project.
Other projects already funded by the state government are yet to be delivered by council - these include the set of 200 lights around the Steve Moneghetti running track at Lake Wendouree, and the $14 million 1000 free car parks across the city announced as an election promise in 2018.
City of Ballarat mayor Daniel Moloney said both projects are still in the planning stages, with the much-anticipated lake lighting expected to come before council's planning committee next month.
Council is also working with Regional Development Victoria on the sites for the new car parks, he said.
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