Have your say on Council’s draft Asset Plan
Published on 22 April 2022
Residents are invited to have their say on Mildura Rural City Council’s draft Asset Plan, detailing how Council will manage more than $1 billion in vital infrastructure assets on behalf of the community over the next decade.
Councillor for Infrastructure and Assets Glenn Milne said the plan was a critical document for our region’s future and a new requirement under the Victorian Local Government Act 2020.
“Providing effective and efficient management of assets is a key obligation of any Council, as it relates to a whole host of important infrastructure we all use and rely on every day,” Cr Milne said.
These assets are represented in the following categories:
- Roads and footpaths
- Buildings and facilities including pools
- Stormwater drainage
- Public open space
“These assets play vital roles supporting the delivery of services such as maternal and child health, recreation and leisure facilities, waste and environmental management, transport and economic development,” he said.
“Our draft Asset Plan outlines the resources required, and what we are doing as an organisation, to ensure our assets continue to be managed in a way that will enable Council to provide the more than 100 services our community expects now and into the future.
“Importantly, we also need to ensure we do this at the lowest cost to our community.
“With a municipality as large as ours, covering an area of more than 22,300 square kilometres, with more than 5,000 kilometres of roads, nine swimming pool sites, and 533 buildings, and more than 4,000 pieces of outdoor furniture to maintain, this is no easy task.”
Cr Milne said the plan outlines several key measures to ensure assets are managed efficiently on behalf of the community, most of which are already in place.
These include:
- A thorough inspection plan to proactively identify any risks, defects, or hazards that require immediate attention
- Planned maintenance activities to ensure efficient operation and serviceability of assets
- Ensuring any program of works to create new assets, or upgrade existing assets, is primarily driven by community, growth, social and/or environmental priorities
- Employ the ‘renew before new’ principle, ensuring any new works proposals are assessed in terms of their lifecycle costs, such as costs to operate and maintain the asset over its entire life
- A comprehensive renewal plan, which identifies assets requiring renewal based on condition assessments, which are then prioritised based on available funding
- A disposal plan to determine assets that should be disposed of, or decommissioned based on levels of service. These decisions would be made in consultation with community and user groups, with physical or financial risk key considerations.
Residents can view and have their say on Council’s draft Asset Plan at https://yoursay.mildura.vic.gov.au/imagine . Feedback can be provided until 5pm Wednesday 4 May 2022.
ENDS