The Greater Bendigo City Council has adopted a new Community Asset Policy. Community assets include everything from buildings, public toilets, structures, statues and monuments, playspaces, sporting grounds, parks and reserves to bridges, roads and associated infrastructure and more.
City of Greater Bendigo Mayor Cr Andrea Metcalf said the City owns and manages a large community asset base valued at around $1.99 billion which serves a population of 120,000 people and expected to grow to more than 200,000 people by 2056.
"The aim of the Community Asset Policy is to support decision making about the future management of community assets," Cr Metcalf said.
"With rapid population growth in some areas and gradual population decline in others, this evolving community demographic is now impacting on community asset and service needs.
"The Community Assets Policy was developed to provide a transparent, consistent, fair and equitable decision-making process to promote equitable community asset and service levels and deal with increasing financial challenges in supporting the maintenance and operations of a large and ageing asset base.
"The policy aims to balance community needs with the operational, environmental and financial challenges the City is being faced with."
The policy was adopted following community consultation on the draft policy. The City received 21 responses.
- 78% of responses found the Policy purpose clear and easy to understand
- 84% found the Policy definition of terms clear and helped them to understand what the Policy is referring to
- 74% said the principles and their descriptions were clear and easy to understand
- When asked if there was anything missing in the principles of the Policy, 71% indicated no
