Council secures $39.5 million election funding commitments

Published on 16 May 2022

Frankston City Council has secured $39.5 million in election funding commitments from candidates representing the major parties in the seat of Dunkley.

Mayor Nathan Conroy welcomed the commitments for Council’s flagship election advocacy priority projects, adding: “These initiatives are strongly supported by the community and it’s gratifying that so far, three of our advocacy priority projects have received support from candidates.

“Council is committed to these initiatives, which we’ve shown by committing $30.2 million funding towards delivering these projects. In order for these projects to proceed, we need to secure financial contributions from State and Federal Governments

“We’re asking for $31.4 million from State Government and $29.8 million from Federal Government.

“We’ll continue working tirelessly with key stakeholders and our local community to ensure Frankston City gets the funding it deserves to have a prosperous future,” the Mayor said.

Mayor Conroy said the projects are well researched and backed by feasibility studies, business cases and Master Planning, strengthened with in-depth community consultation.

The flagship election advocacy priority projects include:

A bigger and better Pines Forest Aquatic Centre at Frankston North (indicative project cost $31 million).
A District Basketball and Gymnastics Stadium creating state-of-the-art district basketball and gymnastics facilities at Frankston Basketball Stadium (indicative project cost $45 million).
Expanding our access to recycled water to deliver more sustainable water sources for the irrigation of local parklands, reserves and sports grounds by expanding the recycled water infrastructure network (indicative projects cost $6 million).
Revitalisation of Sandfield Reserve in Carrum Downs that will deliver a playground upgrade, barbecue and picnic area, fitness equipment, public events space, youth space and extended skate park, public toilets, drainage and ecology projects (indicative project cost $4 million).
Frankston Regional Arts Trail featuring a 7.4km immersive arts and cultural trail from Frankston Foreshore to McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery, connecting to existing regional cycling and nature trails (indicative project cost $6 million).

Council hosted a Dunkley candidates’ forum at Frankston Arts Centre on 10 May. This enabled community members to hear from their local candidates directly in the lead up to the federal election.

Key topics raised by the community included local employment/local manufacturing, helping small businesses, affordable housing, homelessness, electrification of the rail line and climate change.

Dunkley candidates were invited to participate, with about 200 community members attending in person and over 150 catching the event livestreamed directly to Council’s Facebook page.