Funding capital projects
Our plans don’t start from scratch every year – the Financial Plan builds on the previous year’s activities and capital projects and is informed by asset inspections and condition assessments.
Since 2019 we’ve had the largest investments we have ever made in our assets. Investment in new assets leads to increased ongoing operating costs and our Financial Plan seeks to meet the community demands for new and improved assets.
In 2020 we spent $21.3 million on new capital assets. Our Financial Plan in some years has us spending less than $2 million on new capital assets, whereas our renewal and upgrade capital expenditure are on average increasing over the Financial Plan.
We all want to ensure the assets we use today will be here in the future. That’s why replacing and upgrading our existing assets is a significant portion of our capital projects each year. Our teams work hard to maintain our network of assets and plan for their continued replacement and upgrade.
Our community will participate in the development of the Asset Plan in the coming 12 months. The outcome of that work will reshape our Financial Plan to ensure we reflect the financial needs for the maintenance, renewal and upgrade of our assets. Our Asset Plan will include how we identify, plan and decommission building assets that are no longer safe or functional, where a viable alternative is available. We will consult with you on all proposals to decommission our building assets.
Capital projects can be funded from a range of sources:
- Rates
- Commonwealth Government grants – e.g. Roads to Recovery
- State Government grants – e.g. Regional Roads Victoria
- Development contributions
- Community group contributions
- Borrowings
Our Financial Plan forecasts some borrowings in future years, with total new borrowings of $4.4 million.
You can view details of our capital investments in 21/22 in the current Budget. Our Financial Plan includes allocations for a number of significant investments from 22/23 and beyond – see the table below. Some projects have started in 21/22 and have design or capital construction costs set out in the 21/22 Budget.
These projects are just some of the many and varied capital investments we plan to make over the next 10 years.
Some capital investments are subject to securing State or Government grant funding and some will be funded partly by council cash and new borrowings. Our infrastructure planning is based on a range of factors and our plans can and will change if our key assumptions and inputs change. We plan to build, improve and care for our assets – that means responding to changes in demand as well as building climate-resilient infrastructure.