$19m allocated for upgrades across the shire

On July 24, the Augusta Margaret River Shire Council officially endorsed its 2024/25 budget, which included a $19 million investment in enhancing community assets and an additional $800,000 allocated to local community and environmental groups over the next 12 months.

“We want our shire to be a great place to live so that our growing community has access to the services and facilities they expect and deserve,” Shire President Julia Meldrum said.

The budget aims to balance the needs and desires of the community with the Shire’s available resources.

In addition to supporting ongoing services such as our recreation centres, libraries and Nala Bardip Mia – Margaret River HEART, as well as the continued maintenance of parks, reserves, roads, and paths, the budget allows for provisions for several key renewal and upgrade projects:

“Protecting our unique environment and supporting people of all ages to live an active lifestyle is most important to our community, and our plans for the next 12 months reflect this,” Cr Meldrum said.

“Our Strategic Community Plan 2040 was developed in consultation with our residents to identify what’s important to our community.

“This document has been central to our budgeting process.”

“We’ve undertaken regular workshops between councillors and Shire staff since April to carefully consider the level of community investment we need to deliver the projects and services everyone wants,” she said.

“We’ve workshopped what we can realistically do now and what we’ll do in future years.”

She highlighted the need for more funding, recognising the growing impact of tourism and population growth, noting, “We need the State and Federal Government to make a bigger investment in our shire because our community and environment just can’t sustain the impact of increased tourism and population growth.

“We are marketed globally as a bucket list travel destination by the State Government.

“And our population has grown by 26 percent since 2016.

“On top of that, the percentage of Commonwealth tax revenue distributed to local governments via grants has nearly halved over the past 30 years.

“We want funding levels returned to historical levels because our ratepayers should not be subsidising the cost of facilities that visitors and locals enjoy.”