Council
20 September, 2024
C’mite puts forward projects for funding
COUNCILLORS voted to put a collection of projects up for state and federal funding at this week’s Special Meeting of Council.
The meeting, held to accommodate final financial decisions prior to the caretaker period which began on Tuesday, saw five projects proposed for funding under two programs.
Four projects have been nominated under the second round of the State Government’s Tiny Towns Fund, which provides grants of up to $50,000 for towns with a population under 5000.
The projects included works on the footbridge underpass at Browns Waterhole in Lismore, and upgrades to amenities in Skipton’s Jubilee Park.
The second round of the Tiny Towns Fund closes on October 25.
Councillor Geraldine Conheady said the “right projects” were selected to be nominated for funding and encouraged community groups and organisations to reach out to council for assistance in applying for the grant.
“If anyone’s got some questions about their application or having a few little issues getting it prepared, you can ring the council and get some help to get your application completed,” she said.
“There’s quite tight timing around this funding opportunity, and I think it closes quite soon through the caretaker period.
“It does demonstrate that having projects in the pipeline that we’ve sort of done part of the preparatory work becomes really valuable because our officers had to move very quickly to grab this opportunity, and we had some projects that were some part way down the road in terms of being prepared for funding applications.
“I am impressed and pleased that we were very careful about the council’s capability to meet the co-contribution components of this funding because obviously we need to be sure that our budget can handle it too.”
Cr Ruth Gstrein said the funding program would help make the projects “easy to achieve”.
“I would like to mention that Camperdown and Terang were both successful in receiving $50,000 in the first round and that was the upgrade to the pathways in the Camperdown Botanical Gardens, which is certainly much-needed, and the Terang Civic Hall flooring project,” she said.
“I know they’re only reasonably small amounts of money but saying that $50,000 can make a big difference to these smaller projects, particularly when there’s co-contributions needed.”
One project has also been nominated for the Federal Government’s Growing Regions Fund, which replaced the Building Better Regions Fund in 2022.
The Growing Regions Fund provides project funding of up to $15 million but requires a co-contribution of at least 50 per cent of eligible project costs.
Councillors unanimously voted to propose Bridge 13 on the Camperdown-Timboon Rail Trail as the project seeking funding from the Growing Regions Fund.
Applications for the Growing Regions Fund close on October 10.
Cr Gstrein voted to move the recommendation at the meeting.
“I am pleased to see the Bridge 13 on the Camperdown-Timboon Rail Trail is being proposed for the Growing Regions Fund, and this is just so important,” she said.
“We’ve just finished the trail from Timboon to Port Campbell, and it would be a shame if we have to have the top section of Camperdown-Timboon closed, because I know that a lot of people are going to be using that trail.
“Fingers crossed - let’s hope it’s successful in this round.”
The chief executive officer was authorised to prepare and submit applications to the two funds.