Retaining Bourke Street Depot
As we progress with the Performing Arts Centre in the Old Town Hall in Auburn Street, there has been much discussion around a purpose-built community centre to accommodate our many groups and services.
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A five year lease has been taken out in the Huntley Arcade building and our community services and youth programs have all now moved into this space. It is a modern centre with great facilities and accessibility for these groups.
In the meantime we have been doing a lot of thinking around the future home for these services. $4 million is budgeted over the coming four years for a community centre, and over the past few months we have inspected a number of possible locations around the city. At Tuesday night’s council meeting, Cr Peter Walker put forward a notice of motion to retain the Bourke Street Depot for community centre and community workshop purposes.
There was agreement between all councillors and we have now requested that GM Warwick Bennett undertake further investigations and a draft design for the Bourke Street location to be used as a community centre. The site has many advantages in that it is close to the CBD, has plenty of parking and is a large site (1.13 hectares).
The Huntley Arcade (155 Auburn Street) is proving to be a brilliant new home for our community services – but I also think this is a great first step to a dedicated Community Centre in Goulburn.
Drought Relief
I also put forward a mayoral minute on Tuesday night regarding drought relief. Council agreed to make an allocation of $10,000 from the Financial Assistance Grant provision towards groceries and essentially family support services for farmers and families being effected by the drought.
We will be looking to create a regional wide fund that can assist farmers affected by drought now and into the future; I’ll be talking to Mayor Brian McCormack of Upper Lachlan and Mayor Rowena Abbey of Yass Valley on how this could work. In the meantime we will also be speaking with the state government and appropriate agencies to best determine how the funds will be allocated.
Council have invited the community to make contributions to add to this funding by coming into Customer Service in the Civic Centre at 184 Bourke Street, Goulburn. I’ll keep the community updated on this drought relief fund in the coming weeks.
Recreational Needs Strategy
A Recreational Needs Strategy is being undertaken to provide the council with clear recommendations to meet the present and future recreational land needs of the community, through the provision of appropriate grounds and associated facilities and services to 2038. To summarise, this means sporting fields, open space and parklands.
We are looking for feedback from the community on this project through a simple survey – this can be found online at www.yoursay.goulburn.nsw.gov.au or at the Civic Centre.
