Geelong councillors approve City Deal, with reservations

THE City of Greater Geelong has signed off on its contribution to the City Deal initiative, but some councillors are unhappy with the final breakdown of projects.

In March, the Victorian Labor and federal Coalition governments finally reached agreement on the respective amounts of funding they would provide to the works in the $355 million, 10-year deal.

At their meeting last month, the council agreed to earmark about $17 million in future budget funds towards City Deal projects located within the municipality.

Some councillors expressed disappointment at the absence of funding in the City Deal for certain initiatives, particularly the Northern ARC project in Geelong’s north, as well as the politics surrounding the final announcement.

“I’ve been told that something is better than nothing, but the reality is that in the northern suburbs we got nothing out of this,” Cr Anthony Aitken said.

“This project (the City Deal) was announced as the most significant manner in which state, federal and local governments could work collaboratively to actually put forward some major infrastructure projects for its local community, and then two weeks later, we get a $2 billion project (the Coalition’s budget commitment for Geelong-Melbourne fast rail). Wouldn’t that project be part of a City Deal project and actually be announced together?

“In fact, there’s more money being spent on the Shipwreck Coast… the reality is most of the money’s not even in Geelong, and it’s called a City Deal.”

In response to Cr Aitken’s remarks, Cr Ron Nelson said: “There’s a federal election on, that’s probably why”.

“In the north, the reason you don’t get anything is because it’s a safe Labor seat, state and federal. They’re not going to do anything, because they don’t have to.”

Cr Eddy Kontelj agreed. “It’s not good enough that the north and Whittington aren’t getting their fair share,” he said.

Corangamite Liberal member Sarah Henderson had not responded to questions from this newspaper by deadline.