{"id":181207,"date":"2017-06-14T21:16:26","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T11:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=181207"},"modified":"2020-09-14T11:07:47","modified_gmt":"2020-09-14T01:07:47","slug":"ergon-energy-building-purchase-axed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2017\/06\/14\/ergon-energy-building-purchase-axed\/","title":{"rendered":"Ergon Energy Building Purchase Axed"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A February decision that the South Burnett Regional Council spend $475,000 to buy the former WBBEB building in Haly Street, Kingaroy, and a car park behind it has now been axed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

June 14, 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

A proposal to buy an Ergon Energy building and associated freehold land in Haly Street, Kingaroy was finally axed at Wednesday’s South Burnett Regional Council meeting.<\/p>\n

In February, Councillors voted to purchase the former Wide Bay-Burnett Electricity Board building – which is located between the Carrollee Hotel bottle shop and the Kingaroy Regional Art Gallery – from Ergon for $475,000.<\/p>\n

The intention at the time was to use the building to relocate the Council’s engineering staff from their offices in the former Nanango Shire Council Chambers to Kingaroy.<\/p>\n

But within a week of the vote being taken, some Councillors gave the matter more thought and expressed concerns the Ergon purchase might not be as good as first thought.<\/strong><\/p>\n

One touchy point was that the Kingaroy purchase could have wound up costing the Council more than $1 million when all costs were taken into account.<\/p>\n

This was because a large dirt car park behind the building would need to be upgraded to bitumen.<\/p>\n

There would also be costs associated with wiring the building up for computer and communication systems, and the Council would also have to pay legal fees on the purchase.<\/p>\n

Against this $1 million outlay, the Council would still be unable to avoid paying maintenance costs on its Nanango building to fix ongoing problems with its roof, air conditioning and drainage systems.<\/p>\n

And when maintenance of the Nanango office was complete, the Council would be left with a large, refurbished building that was mostly empty except for a few customer service staff.<\/p>\n

Relocating the 20 engineering staff from Nanango to Kingaroy would also remove a large amount of lunch money from Nanango\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

At the Council’s March meeting, Councillors voted to rescind the February decision.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But after the vote, Cr Terry Fleischfresser proposed in a follow-up motion that the matter be allowed to lay on the table for a few months.<\/p>\n

Cr Fleischfresser said he thought a complete financial analysis of the purchase, along with a study of operational efficiencies that might be made if Council bought the building, was worth looking at.<\/p>\n

Councillors agreed to his proposal.<\/p>\n

However, at Wednesday’s meeting, they voted to reaffirm the March decision.<\/p>\n

Councillors said they had discussed the proposal amongst themselves in the course of preparing the 2017-18 Budget, and had come to a decision not to proceed with the purchase in light of the Council’s current budget position.<\/p>\n

They’d found that if the purchase went ahead, it would significantly reduce the money available for any future building renewal or replacement projects.<\/p>\n

They also found the need to seal the car park at the rear of the building would adversely impact funds available for future capital works.<\/p>\n

A third factor that influenced their decision was that the Council had been committed to a policy of decentralising its staff since the 2008 amalgamations, and relocating staff from Nanango to Kingaroy would be a breach of that policy.<\/p>\n

The motion to axe the purchase was passed 6-1, with Cr Terry Fleischfresser opposed.<\/p>\n

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