The new Batemans Bay Regional Aquatic, Arts and Leisure Centre is progressing well and a significant amount of work has already been completed on the project. To date the project has seen the completion of the Geotechnical investigation, the completion of an assessment of the Mackay Reserve for Aboriginal sites, relics or cultural material and the engagement of Principal Design Consultant architects whose scope of work includes the design and documentation of the full scope of works suitable for statutory approvals, providing design to meet the budget constraints, plus construction tendering and construction. Council have also engaged a Quantity Surveyor to provide cost estimates for all works across the various project stages with Council saying the project is well structured and a series of key milestones have been developed. Council are also advising that the overall funding situation is looking very promising, with $26 million already secured through the NSW Government and the recent announcement that their initial application under the Federal Government’s Regional Growth Fund (RGF) has been successful. Council has now been invited to submit a Full Business Case for the project so that an assessment can be made to inform a final decision on whether the project can be funded under the RGF. Should they be successful, this will bring the total funding up to $51 million. Recently, a series of meetings were conducted with a broad cross-section of the community with participants being drawn from business, schools, aged care, health, sporting clubs, arts community, swimming pool users, community associations and users of the Batemans Bay Community Centre. These groups met with Council’s contracted architects (NBRS Architecture) and were given the opportunity to provide input on how they would use the new centre. Council now advise that they have received positive feedback on these meetings from various attendees and they believe that these sessions were beneficial in helping to inform the overall design process. In December 2018, Council will be presented with three concept designs for the new centre. Once these designs have been endorsed by Council, they will be available for public comment for a period of approximately eight weeks. All the feedback will then be collated and will inform the preparation of the final design. From Council's perspective, the project is meeting both the expectations of Council and the broader community and they are now entering the phase where the three initial concepts will soon be ready for public comment saying that the overall progress of the project "demonstrates that Council has a strong understanding on the deliverables of the project and the outcomes we are hoping to achieve".
