The Greater Geelong council has moved to secure a potential site for a new food relief distribution centre in North Geelong.
During Tuesday night's meeting, councillors voted in support of a Notice of Urgent Business from Cr Pat Murnane, directing the CEO to enter into an option agreement with the owner of 37 Morgan Street, North Geelong.
The option agreement will give a third party food relief provider nominated by the City the opportunity to lease the site from 1 July 2020.
Figures indicate that local agencies are distributing around 2.5 million meals per year to people in the Greater Geelong region.
This figure is expected to rise to 3.2 million by 2031 – an increase of 31 per cent.
Preliminary findings of a council-funded Food Assistance report indicate a need for extra food storage and distribution space within the region to meet this growing demand, and the Morgan Street venue has become available.
With the full Food Assistance report to be delivered to the council in May, councillors have stepped in to make sure the opportunity to lease the property isn't lost in the meantime.
Conditional on the outcomes of the final report, council has also agreed to:
- Allocate the $1 million set aside for food relief in the 2019-20 budget for renovations to the Morgan Street property; and
- Consider
allocating up to $150,000 per year in future budgets for a nominated third
party provider to run the new food relief centre.
Entering into the option agreement will cost $10,000, to be funded from this year's council budget.
Councillor Stephanie Asher - Mayor
This is aligned with our council plan. It's aiming to address what's clearly a fairly desperate need by taking advantage of an opportunity that's arisen.
Councillor Pat Murnane
The owner of this site has other businesses interested in leasing his property, but he's offered it first and foremost to the council to help address the clear need for improved food relief in our region.We need to increase our capacity for emergency food relief, and the plan the council is working on is to bring more of the providers in the region under the one roof so that they can achieve better outcomes. We look forward to sharing more detail on this plan once the Food Assistance report is delivered.
