Council progresses on centres for Wee Waa, Boggabri

Narrabri Shire Council is progressing with the development of the Wee Waa Community Centre and the Boggabri Civic Centre with the two matters raised at the recent ordinary meeting.

Council has approved the design of the Wee Waa centre and will proceed with development application lodgement, while council approved the design of the Boggabri facility for public exhibition.

Estimated costings were included as part of the business paper, with the Wee Waa centre estimated at $3.36 million.

The Boggabri facility would cost $5.15 million.

There would be a funding shortfall of $800,000 for the Wee Waa centre and $1.45 million for the Boggabri centre.

Addressing the matter, council’s financial and commercial services director Ted Harrington said they were two distinct projects.

“What we’re wanting to do is progress this to the stage where we no longer have any cost pressures within the organisation,” he told the meeting.

“Wee Waa Community Centre is a grant funded project. We’re wishing to proceed to development application as soon as we can to be able to lock in some prices.

“Similarly for Boggabri Civic Centre, costs are escalating as we speak.”

The Wee Waa Community Centre will progress to the development application phase.

Mayor Darrell Tiemens asked Mr Harrington to explain to the assembled councillors and the gallery why the projects have gone up in cost.

“As we’re all aware, cost increases across the board occur from year to year. Some of these projects have been on the books since 2018 and due to varying issues within staff, resourcing, timings, public consultation and public exhibition periods, council is unlike any other beast,” Mr Harrington said.

“We can’t just set out and go to build a building today and have it happen tomorrow.

“We’ve got a lot of red tape to go through. There are development approvals.

“We’ve got to make sure we’ve got funding. We can’t just pull it out of our pocket.

“It’s got to be within our strategic plan and our operational plan.

“Council has to endorse it. The public has to be consulted in terms of an exhibition, and that in itself becomes time consuming. And time means money.”

Cr Brett Dickinson queried about the shortfalls in funding for the projects and where the money would come from.

Interim general manager Eloise Chaplain said staff had outlined options in the business paper.

Funds could be sought from developer contributions, grants or council could take out a loan.

Mrs Chaplain explained that no option regarding the extra funds has been decided.

“What we really want to do is get the final design locked in with the community, particularly with Boggabri,” Mrs Chaplain said.

“Wee Waa is very similar to what went out previously, so we want to jump straight into the development process.

“Planning wise, we can look at how much it will cost and come back to council.”

Councillor Greg Lamont acknowledged that the Wee Waa project is progressing while Boggabri needs approval by the public of the design. He also queried if the community needs to discuss the financial options.

Mrs Chaplain said what council wants from the community is to know exactly what they want.

“Is that detailed design what they were hoping for,” she said.

“It’s slightly different, but we think it is better than the concept that was originally produced for the community.

“We want to go out there and say is this exactly what you want, can we remove anything or do you want us to add anything.

“That will turn into a different conversation.”

Moving the motion, Cr Lamont sought to have extra detail that a report on the financial implications come back to council.

This was seconded by Cr Joshua Roberts-Garnsey and unanimously carried by councillors.