Mayoral Column – Annual Report
Published on 28 October 2022
On behalf of Colac Otway Shire Council, I am very proud to present our Annual Report for 2021-22 which was adopted at the October Council meeting.
The report outlines Colac Otway Shire Council’s performance over the 2021-22 financial year against the key objectives, strategies and priorities as outlined in the Council Plan 2021-25 and Budget 2021-2022.
The Annual Report is an opportunity for our community to check-in on Council’s progress toward achieving long-term goals for our shire.
Council has reported against its four key themes: Strong and Resilient Economy, Valuing the Natural and Built Environment, Healthy and Inclusive Community and Strong Leadership and Management.
Under the theme of Strong and Resilient Economy, Council’s major initiative was to facilitate the process of making residential land available as demand for housing for families and key workers continues to increase. One achievement toward this goal was the sale of Council owned land at Bruce Street, Colac which was zoned for residential development incorporating three sites for social housing.
In addition, Council is continuing to work on a range of projects to increase the supply of residential land in Colac to meet demand.
Other achievements under this theme included a total of $335,810 in Council grants and donations to assist the Colac Otway community to undertake projects and activities through the Shire. A total of $64,324 was also allocated to support community events.
Working under the theme of Valuing the Natural and Built Environment, our major initiative was to implement an additional kerbside collection bin for glass-only recycling with 10,420 purple bins rolled out in October 2021 and first collections starting in November 2021. Since then, a total of 330.86 tonnes of glass has been collected from November 2021 to 30 June 2022.
Work continues at Council’s transfer stations across the Shire to introduce separation of general waste, recycling, glass and green waste.
In addition to our street trees and open spaces programs, Council planted 2,575 biodiversity focussed trees, shrubs, grasses and lilies.
All programmed and scheduled works were successfully delivered as well as a range of projects across our parks and gardens and building and facility maintenance. Council maintained 1,628km of roads (568km of sealed roads and 1,060km of unsealed roads), 248 bridges and major culverts and 163km of footpaths.
For Council’s work in the theme of Health and Inclusive Community, we completed our first year with the Geelong Regional Library Corporation. Colac Otway community members now have access to a significantly larger physical and e-collection of titles as well as a variety of innovative programs through the network of libraries.
A second major initiative was achieved in the construction of the new Apollo Bay Early Years Hub facility at the Apollo Bay P-12 College site with kindergarten services commencing in February this year. The site includes a dedicated Maternal and Child Health consulting space and provides great benefit for local children and families as they transition between kindergarten and school. Construction of this new facility is the result of a partnership between the State Government and Council. Notwithstanding workforce challenges, this is a great facility for the community and will deliver benefits for many years.
Council’s Community Care Services continue to provide an important and valued service to our residents. In the 2021-22 year, Council delivered 40,632 hours of care for older persons providing respite care, domestic assistance, home care, property maintenance and transport, this is an increase of 325 hours of care from the previous year.
Under Council’s theme of Strong Leadership and Management, the major initiative to develop our Asset Management Plans was achieved. The asset plans for our largest infrastructure groups informed the overarching Asset Plan as required by the Local Government Act 2020. In 2021-22 Council finalised the Asset Management Strategy and Asset Management Plans for Council’s six major asset classes: bridges, roads, footpaths, stormwater and drainage, open space and buildings.
While Council didn’t complete the second major initiative, a service review of Colac Regional Saleyards, the organisation continued to find financial savings as part of its budget development process and incorporated these into Council’s business.
Colac Regional Saleyards remain a major asset for the regional agricultural sector and service reviews will be undertaken to guide the future of this important service.
In addition to the major initiatives set by Council, we reported on 85 initiatives under the key themes. From this total, 30 initiatives have been achieved, 26 have partially been achieved with work continuing and 29 initiatives are ongoing.
I encourage Colac Otway residents and ratepayers to take some time to review the document and provide feedback to Council on where you believe we’re doing well and where we can do better to help our community realise our long-term goals.