Plans for Bacchus Marsh’s long-awaited indoor pool complex may be put on the backburner again amid fears a $7 million grant announced by Labor before the federal election will be scrapped by the new government.
Efforts to build an aquatic centre in Grant Street have been ongoing for 25 years.
As reported by the Weekly, Labor announced in August that Regional Development Australia funding for the complex had been included in the federal budget.
But the Liberal government indicated last week that only projects with existing contracts would be honoured.
Community consortium secretary Jocelyn Williams said she was still hopeful the pool would be built, despite not knowing if the group would have to apply for another grant program.
Ballarat Labor MP Catherine King has written to Infrastructure and Regional Development Minister Warren Truss for formal confirmation the funding won’t go ahead.
“This is incredibly disappointing,’’ she said . “In essence, there’s no opportunity for Moorabool shire to apply for regional projects until 2015 under the current government.
“It’s awful. It has not come out of thin air. It’s gone through local communities and council and been signed off, and now it’s just dismissed.”
Moorabool council chief executive Rob Croxford said the council had heard nothing from the federal government.
“They’ve spoken about having a regional fund, but it won’t kick in until 2015 so we’ve asked what that means in the interim,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Mr Truss did not respond to a request for comment before the Weekly deadline.
Mr Croxford said the pool’s fate may also be affected by state electoral boundary changes expected to be announced on Thursday.
Draft maps released in June showed the seat of Ballarat East would be abolished and most of Moorabool shire would be swept into the proposed Buninyong electorate. Other parts would be included in Melton.
In July, the council requested that the entire shire fall within Buninyong and that it be renamed Moorabool.
“The principle is, if we were more marginal it would help us,’’ Mr Croxford said.
‘‘If we are part of the Melton electorate it could be more problematic in getting projects through.’’
