October 24, 2017
The South Burnett Regional Council will create a 10-year plan to manage its building assets, thanks to a $180,000 grant from Queensland’s Local Government Grants and Subsidies Program.
It will use the money to undertake an exhaustive assessment of all the region’s public buildings.
This audit will determine what condition they’re in; what maintenance or replacements will be needed over a ten year period; and what this is likely to cost.
The work will be undertaken by a specialist consultant.
One of its key outputs will be a detailed 10-year maintenance and replacement schedule for all the region’s building assets.
Mayor Keith Campbell said he was very grateful to the State Government for the grant.
“This process will produce a forward plan for maintaining all our region’s public buildings,” he said.
“It will allow us to schedule maintenance and replacement work better, and will also make drawing up our annual Budgets a little easier.”
The Mayor said up to now, a lack of resources had tended to limit forward planning to a year-by-year approach.
“Council owns a lot of building assets,” the Mayor said.
“For example, we own seven town halls; two art galleries; five visitor information centres; five customer service centres … and the list goes on.
“It’s our duty to keep these in the best possible condition for residents, because they’re all public property.”
The Council currently spends between $4 and $4.3 million each year on repairs and maintenance.
The Mayor said the Building Asset Register and 10-year maintenance plan needs to be drawn up by June 30, 2019, and will cover the period to 2029.
“It will introduce another sound management process to the way the Council operates,” Mayor Campbell said.
“I’m very pleased this is happening on my watch.”
