The federal government’s pre-election budget produced mixed results for Logan, which did not fulfil any of council’s bucket list items.
Logan City Council eyed off partial funding for 12 priority projects, but none received funding.
Mayor Darren Power said the “mixed outcomes” were disappointing.
“It was disappointing to not see any investment in these projects after we gave clear reasons to justify the benefits to our city,” he said.
The bucket list included items such as $16.4m for the Middle and Teviot Road Interchange upgrades, Loganlea Road Widening project, digital connectivity project aimed at fixing blackspots and wireless speeds, leisure centre renovations for centres in Park Ridge and Beenleigh, and Rosia Park sport facility funding.
“While this wasn’t the result we wanted, council will continue advocating to both levels of government to support our city’s rapidly growing population, and this will be evident during the upcoming election,” Mr Power said.
But not all was lost for Logan. In the lead up to the budget, Logan benefitted greatly from the south east Queensland city deal, which will pump $1.12b into local projects.
One of those will be the Logan to Gold Coast faster rail development, while $32.46m from that will go to community facilities, such as pools, libraries, performing arts and sports centres.
Council and the government did not see eye to eye on these priorities.
One of the unexpected outcomes of the temporary fuel excise cut is it will help stabilise council rates over the next 6 months.
Fuel is always a huge cost factor in everyday maintenance duties around town, so the excise relief means that it will not be as expensive to provide those services.
“The temporary fuel excise relief helps ratepayers, not just in their own hop pocket, because council will be paying less for fuel that we use, which most people don’t realise,” Cr Jon Raven said.
“That means our costs are lower for the next six months, which means we don’t need to figure out how to pay for that.”
