Hills a council cash cow

By Jade Lawton
HILLS residents say their rates dollars are subsidising Cardinia Shire’s burgeoning growth corridor.
President of the Gembrook Township Committee, David Nickell, says the budget shows that 91 per cent of the council’s capital works budget is spent in the growth area, despite the fact that just over half of the shire’s residents currently live there.
Mr Nickell said the hills, taking in Gembrook, Cockatoo and Emerald, were home to 29 per cent of the shire’s population but saw a measly five per cent of the Capital Works spend.
“It’s a decade long trend – hills and rural communities have been subsiding growth corridor though their rates,” he said.
“Gembrook and the hills area do receive some council support, however compared to what’s occurring in the growth area it does seem inequitable.”
Mr Nickell said the State Government, not hills residents, should be subsiding infrastructure for Cardinia’s population boom.
Both Mr Nickell and Emerald Village Committee Secretary Frank McGuire said residents generally travelled east or west for recreation and shopping and rarely ventured south to Pakenham.
“It’s Emerald, Cockatoo, Gembrook – we all have projects we would like. We put in an application every year, budget requests, and mostly council don’t give us anything,” Mr McGuire said.
“That doesn’t mean they’ve done nothing in Emerald – to give them credit, they have done a $1 million upgrade of Emerald Lake Park.”
A Cardinia Shire Council spokesperson said council was committed to ensuring all residents in all townships had access to services.
“While the development of facilities such as Holm Park Recreation Reserve in Beaconsfield and the new Pakenham Library Hall and U3A are major projects in Central Ward, this is balanced by the fact that the vast majority of spending on roads, bridges, drains, footpaths and other infrastructure happens outside the growth corridor,” they said.
They say that in 2010-2011, $876,000 will be spent on maintaining sealed roads and bridges with $1.48 million allocated to grading works and $1.612 million to be spent on resheeting works, most of which lies outside of the growth corridor.
“Of course, not all expenditure is spent on roads. Council is currently undertaking a $1 million upgrade of Emerald Lake Park and in the past 12 months completed the new Bunyip Auditorium (total project cost $2.1m), Gembrook Community Centre extension ($440,000) and upgrade of Cochrane Park, Kooweerup ($183,000). New capital works projects in 2010–11 include the Gemco theatre car park ($200,000) and a community house at Bunyip ($271,000).”
But Mr McGuire said minor capital works requests, such as footpath repairs, were not addressed and that the majority of hills residents never used facilities like Cardinia LiFE or the regional tennis centre.
“We don’t see it. We only read about it when we get our rates reports. As I understand Ranges Ward contributes about 30 per cent of rates revenue, but we don’t see nearly that much.”