August 16, 2019
South Burnett Regional Council will try to secure State Government funds for its planned upgrade of Kingaroy’s CBD.
On Friday, Mayor Keith Campbell confirmed Council officers are preparing an application to Round 5 of the State Government’s Building Our Regions (BOR) grants program.
The latest round will distribute $70 million to rural and remote Queensland councils for “shovel-ready” projects, with particular emphasis on infrastructure.
Last November, the Council announced it had built a $4 million war chest for the project.
But it hoped to increase this to $8 million by attracting matching grant funding from the Federal Government’s Building Better Regions Fund.
The Council unsuccessfully applied to this fund twice.
In March, when Council’s most recent application was turned down, Mayor Campbell said he was disappointed but this would not prevent a start being made on the Kingaroy project.
He said Council’s engineers were developing costings for two parts of the project, and they would be brought to a Council meeting for approval in the near future.
One of them was an upgrade of the current parking area behind Kingaroy Street’s banks to allow caravan parking as well as cars; and another was the introduction of caravan parking bays in Glendon Street.
Work on upgrading associated underground infrastructure would also be carried out as part of both projects.
“These two projects were both identified as high priority items during Council’s public consultation meetings,” the Mayor said.
“Other parts of the CBD upgrade will be rolled out progressively as funds permit.”
The latest round of the BOR program was announced earlier this month by State Development Minister Cameron Dick.
Councils have until Friday, August 30, to submit expressions of interest.
Related articles:
- Council Misses Out On $4m Grant
- Council Drafts $8m Streetscape Plan
- Council Delays CBD Upgrade
- Council May Resubmit CBD Proposal
- KCCI Pushes For Start To CBD Upgrade
- Kingaroy Streetscape Put On Hold
- CBD Ideas Draw Few Responses
- Reaction To Streetscape ‘Positive’
- Meet The Future Face Of Kingaroy
- Business Meetings For CBD Project
- Public Meetings On Kingaroy CBD Upgrade
- Kingaroy Streetscape Plans Progressing
- Consultants Working On Concept Plan
- Council Plans $8m CBD Upgrade
