The Mayor’s Column – April 2026

GOLDEN Plains Shire is growing – and growing fast.

With the upcoming 2026 State Election, this is the time to advocate for increased infrastructure, services and community facilities.

Our towns continue to attract families, businesses and investment. While this is fantastic, we need to ensure we meet the demands of our growing communities.

That’s why we’ve identified a focused set of priority areas that are critical to supporting our community now and into the future.

With a predicted population forecast of over 42,000 by 2041, we need investment into a community where people can thrive.

These priorities are evidence based, community informed and address issues felt right across the community – such as public transport, road safety and digital connectivity.

We know the lack of public transport across the Shire greatly affects our community, which is why we’re calling for increased public bus and transport services and reinstating the passenger rail from Bannockburn to Geelong.

These actions are essential to support workforce participation, access to education and health services and reduce car dependency.

We also need road safety to support these ambitions – road upgrades to McPhillips Road in Bannockburn and Russell’s Bridge Road in Russells Bridge are great starting points.

The Midland Highway is also an essential corridor between Ballarat and Geelong and duplicating that stretch of road would support the heavy traffic we’re seeing on the road daily.

We have an active community who enjoy the outdoors – we want to see tracks and trails and off-road links that will improve connectivity between townships.

 

The Bannockburn–Teesdale off–road link, the Ross Creek and Smythesdale trails, and similar routes across the municipality reflect the trail network our community is calling for.

When residents raise these proposals through consultation, we want to meet that demand and turn those ideas into real, accessible trails.

Community safety is a top priority, which is why we need an Ambulance Victoria station in Smythesdale.

People in Smythesdale and surrounding towns are having to wait for Ambulances from Ballarat, and that’s just not good enough.

This is fundamental to improving response times.

Golden Plains Shire has one of the lowest Code 1 ambulance response times performances in Victoria. With the rate at which our municipality is growing, we need to increase emergency services everywhere.

Young people are the heart of our community, and with the population of children and young people growing rapidly, we need new kindergartens in Inverleigh, Lethbridge and Bannockburn, and upgrades to the kinder at Woady Yaloak.

With this, we also need to ensure there’s plenty of spaces for play and social connection.

That’s why we want to upgrade Teesdale Turtle Bend Reserve, the Lethbridge playground, construct the Moorabool River Playspace in Batesford and Smythesdale Sub-Regional Play Space.

Other priorities include sewerage infrastructure for Meredith, scrapping the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund, and improving mobile and digital connectivity across the Shire.

There’s lots to do – which is why myself, fellow Councillors and the CEO are continuing to meet with key delegates and representatives to advocate for these essential projects.

We recently met with Peri Urban Council’s Victoria to discuss election priorities across the Peri Urban group and how we can work together to deliver a balanced set of priorities that benefit us and surrounding regions.

This advocacy is not about politics. It is about partnership.

We hope the governments take our priorities seriously and are willing to invest in the future of Golden Plains Shire.

Only with continued investment can we secure the Shire’s future as a vibrant, welcoming place to live, work and raise a family.

Yours in community,

Cr Owen Sharkey

Golden Plains Shire mayor.