Surf Coast Shire: 2025 in Focus

Mayor, Surf Coast Shire FROM core day-to-day services to major strategic decisions that will affect the shire’s future, it’s a fun yet challenging task to condense an entire Council year into a brief snapshot.

An exercise like this is definitely a reminder of how fortunate we are at Council to have many and varied opportunities to positively impact community life.

Looking back on the early part of 2025, the drought looms large in memory – it caused (and continues to cause) terrible financial and emotional stress for our farming community.

Council publicly advocated against the Victorian Government’s Emergency Services and Volunteer Fund levy with its disproportionate impact on primary producers, and at budget time, voted to freeze rates for farm land at 2024-25 levels.

Building and maintaining community facilities and public spaces is always a prominent part of any Council’s role.

 

With a growing population, we’re looking to balance construction of new assets with renewal of our existing assets as they age. We saw a good mix of both in 2025.

In February, we re-opened the Winchelsea pool after an $8.9 million re-build. It looks amazing and will now serve the community well into the future.

Elsewhere, construction of the Wurdi Baierr Aquatic and Recreation Centre has made major progress (thanks to funding by all three levels of government), while the just-opened synthetic hockey pitch in north Torquay is an outstanding new facility delivered in partnership with the state government. We’re also well advanced on a major redevelopment of Spring Creek Reserve oval in Torquay to improve drainage and irrigation.

Looking to the shire’s future, our adoption of an Urban Futures Strategy was a big step toward our aim of achieving sustainable growth.

The strategy will guide how our shire accommodates the expected population increase over the next three decades, with Winchelsea gradually taking over from Torquay as the main growth area.

 

I’m proud that we continue to be a Council that aims to advance First Nations Reconciliation.

We again supported the Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation with the ‘Pilk Purriyn’ truth telling event on January 26, and in October, adopted our second Reconciliation Action Plan.

Waste management is one of our core responsibilities and we are working hard to support a circular economy through recycling and re-use wherever possible.

After a successful trial, we’ve now introduced a permanent soft plastic recycling drop-off service at our Anglesea transfer station – saving more of these materials from ending up in our landfill, which is nearly full.

Midway through the year we stood alongside many members of the local community who are worried about the health of Anglesea River by making a submission to Southern Rural Water expressing concern about Alcoa’s application to continue extracting groundwater to fill the old mine site.

Many of our annual Council programs continued to have a positive impact this year.

 

The 2025 Surf Coast Arts Trail was a huge success, our Community Grants supported another wide range of community-led projects, and our bush and beach kinder programs were again a hit with kids while delivering great learning outcomes.

There was movement on the Council itself in the latter half of the year, with the resignation of Rebecca Bourke and election of councillor Phoebe Crockett on a countback to fill the vacancy.

I was honoured to be elected mayor in November, following a year of great leadership by Cr Mike Bodsworth in the role.

Cr Bodsworth played an important role bringing a new group of councillors together and leading us through development of a new four-year Council Plan, which we finalised in September after an extensive community engagement process.

Trees were a clear theme to finish the year.

Five new Christmas trees have brought festive joy in towns across the shire as part of our expanded ‘Share the Surf Coast Spirit’ program.

 

And in both Deans Marsh and Winchelsea, new street trees now line key streets as the first planting programs delivered through our new, multi-year ‘Branching Out’ initiative.

There will be more ‘Branching Out’ planting in 2026, and there are several other major projects on the agenda.

I’m particularly excited for construction to begin on the Karaaf Wetlands stormwater diversion project in Torquay, and to realise our long-held aim of generating more social and affordable housing in coastal communities.

We also expect to achieve Eco-Destination tourism accreditation, which we hope will contribute to achieving a more sustainable and regenerative approach to tourism across the region, delivering more of the positive outcomes that tourism can bring, and less of the negative impacts that are experienced by some in our smaller townships.

Thank you to our passionate community for the many constructive and interesting discussions we’ve had throughout 2025.

Your input is so important in shaping the decisions we make as a Council, and we look forward to continuing to work alongside you next year and beyond.

BY LIBBY STAPLETON