Hannah Hammoud
The hard work of the Keilor Sports Club (KSC) community has paid off in the form of an extra $550,000 funding allocation in Brimbank council’s 2023-24 budget.
It has been a long road for those lobbying to council for more funding to upgrade the outdated facilities at the Keilor Sports Club.
Club president Hayden Kelly said the funding decision made at the council meeting on June 20 was a “big step” for the sports club community.
“We’re really happy with the decision and we can now adequately cater for our member base of more than 1400 people,” he said.
“… I want to thank Virginia Tachos who represents the Horseshoe Bend Ward and spoke to the motion at the meeting, she’s a fantastic councillor to the Keilor community. Thanks as well to the guidance from the mayor Bruce Lancashire.”
A round of applause echoed across the public gallery as Cr Tachos moved a motion to add an additional $550,000 in funding for the KSC to the budget.
The extra funding follows from the allocation of $150,000 from council, along with contribution from the state government to upgrade the kitchen at the KSC social rooms.
Cr Tachos noted the extra funding would be subject to a further report to council detailing the available budget, funding, procurement, project supervision, final project staging, risk management plan, proposed legal agreement with the club and clarification that the project can be delivered.
Cr Lancashire said there was certainly money in the budget to make this project happen.
“We have been very diligent in how we’ve approached this matter,” he said.
“The staff, community, club, councillors have all worked very hard to make sure the checks and balances are in place to see that this project will go ahead and will be successful.”
Brimbank’s 2023-2024 budget was adopted with a further change that included an additional $10,000 of operating budget for arts and culture programming for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
