The Beagle
Mar 10, 2018
Dear Editor
At the 15 February public meeting held in Batemans Bay to discuss council's proposal for a new $46m indoor aquatic and arts centre the mayor advised by letter that a decision on the council's application for a grant of $28.3m from the Regional Sports Infrastructure Fund would be known in the next few weeks.
Clearly, success in obtaining this very large grant is crucial to the future of this project. As no announcement has been made I visited the Office of Sport website to establish where the grant assessment process was at.
A new page advises that the fund is changing, new program guidelines (allowing consideration and assessment of the "full range" of benefits) are to be soon available and expressions of interest can be submitted between 12 March and 4 May.
There is neither information on the status of current applications nor an expected time frame for decisions. In the light of this development council must advise the community of the consequences for its project plans.
Perhaps there is now an opportunity to amend council's application to improve its alignment with the fund's new requirements and better reflect the community's demand for a sports standard 50m pool?
Yours sincerely
Paul Bradstreet
Surf Beach