With over $20 million of capital projects, Council and its staff are certainly incredibly busy.
We understand that our community would like to better understand how these projects are considered, developed, funded and executed.
Priority projects start as concept plans and evolve into detailed project specifications over time.
Through the detailed planning work, more becomes known about a project – including the amount of funding that is required. The potential sources of funding can also change and is never confirmed until those partners state their contribution.
These are just some of the reasons why the timing, project costs and funding sources vary in annual Council budgets.
External funding is often announced by politicians but there is a period of administrative process before Council receives the funding and the project can commence. This includes drafting and signing of grant funding agreements. Each grant program may also have different payment schedules with some grants paid partly or wholly in advance, and some paid across the life of the project on completion of agreed stages.
Our funding partners often place very tight timeframes for project delivery and specify certain project delivery requirements. These may prove impossible to deliver either within the timeframe or because contractors are simply unavailable - a particular problem in the very challenging employment situation we face given the impact of COVID-19.
When many specialist contractors are involved in a project, all it takes is one delay, so that the next contractor cannot proceed as planned, and suddenly the whole project timeframe needs to be recalibrated creating a massive workload for our staff.
Our staff do a fantastic job to deliver, and so many projects are already completed or are well underway. Other projects face hurdles. All we ask is patience and kindness while every effort is made to quickly get things back on track.
