News

Open­ing for pub­lic com­ment on Thurs­day 23 May, the draft bud­get deliv­ers $19.1 mil­lion in cap­i­tal expen­di­ture to help improve live­abil­i­ty for res­i­dents of all ages.

Major infra­struc­ture invest­ment head­lines the bud­get, with $5.8 mil­lion allo­cat­ed to the Region­al Skate and Play Precinct at New­land Park, $2 mil­lion for a detailed design of the CBD Regen­er­a­tion project and $908,000 for a com­plete revamp of Frank McEl­lis­ter Park.

Coun­cil are also plan­ning to improve live­abil­i­ty well into the future with funds allo­cat­ed for a foot­path and road reseal pro­gram to increase safe­ty for res­i­dents, as well as the imple­men­ta­tion of a green­ing strat­e­gy to reduce the effects of heat in our CBD.

“Pre­sent­ing a prac­ti­cal bud­get that improves live­abil­i­ty for Alice Springs res­i­dents, both now and into the future, is some­thing we are extreme­ly proud of,” May­or Matt Pater­son said.

“We under­stand that cost of liv­ing pres­sures have hit us all hard across the last year. It’s about hav­ing a bal­ance that recog­nis­es and helps with those chal­lenges, while still invest­ing in our town and help­ing cre­ate a con­nec­tion between residents.

“We have some excit­ing projects to look for­ward to in Alice Springs and we’ve also bud­get­ed to improve and expand our munic­i­pal ser­vices. We are tak­ing a holis­tic look at the work we do with­in our community.”

Ratepay­ers will see an increase of 4.7% to rates, equat­ing to a $1.38 per week increase on the min­i­mum res­i­den­tial rate and $1.45 per week on the min­i­mum com­mer­cial rate.

The draft Munic­i­pal Plan will be avail­able to the pub­lic from Thurs­day 23 May via the Alice Springs Town Coun­cil web­site. Print­ed copies will also avail­able at the Civic Cen­tre Recep­tion. All mem­bers of the pub­lic invit­ed to sub­mit their feed­back. Feed­back must be addressed to the CEO and can be sub­mit­ted in writ­ten form at the Civic Cen­tre Recep­tion Desk or via email to astc@​astc.​nt.​gov.​au.

You can view the draft plan here.