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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Some councillors expressed disappointment at the absence of funding in the City Deal for certain initiatives, particularly the Northern ARC project in Geelong\u2019s north, as well as the politics surrounding the final announcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been told that something is better than nothing, but the reality is that in the northern suburbs we got nothing out of this,\u201d Cr Anthony Aitken said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis 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\u00a0local community, and then two weeks later, we get a $2 billion project (the Coalition\u2019s budget commitment for Geelong-Melbourne fast rail). Wouldn\u2019t that project be part of a City Deal project and actually be announced together?<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact, there\u2019s more money being spent on the Shipwreck Coast\u2026 the reality is most of the money\u2019s not even in Geelong, and it\u2019s called a City Deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response to Cr Aitken\u2019s remarks, Cr Ron Nelson said: \u201cThere\u2019s a federal election on, that\u2019s probably why\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the north, the reason you don\u2019t get anything is because it\u2019s a safe Labor seat, state and federal. They\u2019re not going to do anything, because they don\u2019t have to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cr Eddy Kontelj agreed. \u201cIt\u2019s not good enough that the north and Whittington aren\u2019t getting their fair share,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Corangamite Liberal member Sarah Henderson had not responded to questions from this newspaper by deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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, […]<\/p>\n