Prior to the passing of the Esperance Shire budget last week, Deputy Shire president Jennifer Obourne reminded Council of her unsuccessful March motion to demolish the Graham Mackenzie stadium and not replace it.
“In the fight against inflation, governments need to do more to put downward pressure on inflation rather than start multi-million dollar projects,” she told Council last week.
Council then passed the budget, allocating funds to demolishing and replacing the ageing stadium which Cr Obourne said would saddle the Shire with “inter-generational debt”.
After the meeting, Shire president Ron Chambers told the Weekender the Shire was committed to rebuilding the Graham Mackenzie stadium with $4.9 million attributed in this budget to it.
“It is funded from grants and other money from other sources,” he said.
He said this consisted of $400,000 from the former stadium committee; $1.5 million from the Shire building and maintenance reserve; and $2.9 million from local community roads and infrastructure grant funding received last year.
“We are aware we will have to borrow money in the future to complete this and it will have to be funded from rates,” he said.
“It has the potential to be offset by fees and charges as far as the useage of the facility goes.”
Mr Chambers said the Shire had been monitoring use of the Graham Mackenzie Stadium for three years since the new indoor stadium opened.
“The reports show it has gone from 490 hours to over 1600 hours,” he said.
“But we also saw with the building of the new stadium how with better-quality facilities the use expands rapidly.
“This new stadium will have two multi-purpose vinyl floors and one indoor turf floor.”
Meanwhile, Mr Chambers said Council had awarded the tender to replace the new stadium’s water-damaged floor at a cost of $1,393,000 for cleaning, inspection, drying and installation of the new floor.
“Unfortunately all four courts had to be replaced because there was toxic mould in the other two courts, and that cost will be covered by reimbursement from our insurers,” he said.
Other major projects and acquisitions planned for the 2023-24 Financial year include:·
• $17,172,000 for road renewals and improvements across the Shire.
• $4,345,000 for Stage One of the Myrup Waste Management Facility, with modern processing infrastructure expected to divert substantial amounts of waste from landfill.
• $1,741,000 on land development; which is considered not viable for private business to carry out, to meet residential, social, health, business and development needs.
• $70,000 for the Airport Upgrade and Extension Business Case.
• $930,000 for the Cascade Volunteer Bush Fire Brigade Shed, providing housing for fire fighting appliances in a secured purpose-built facility to be used as either an Incident Control Centre or as a Forward Operations Point.
