Community Budget Ideas 2024/25
The Merri-bek community had a say in initiatives that were put forward to potentially be included as part of the 2024/25 Budget
Our 4-year
Council Budget
Council met on April 10th, 2024, and adopted the Proposed 4-year Budget 2024-2028 (PDF 6.24MB) for public exhibition.
This year's total budget is $232.0 million and includes the delivery of important services such as road resurfacing, maintaining footpaths, upgrading parks and playgrounds, as well as services for our older residents, MCH, kindergartens, immunisation and much more.
Some of the highlights of the budget are:
- Completion of the $36.9 million Fawkner Leisure Centre redevelopment (stage one) which is due to open for the 2024-25 summer season;
- Completion of the $29.0 million
Saxon Street Cultural and Community Hub;
- Continuing the $22.2 million upgrade works on several early years’ facilities over the next 5-years including Brunswick Early Years Hub;
- $19.0 million will go towards improving parks, open space and streetscapes;
- $17.6 million to roads and carparks renewal and maintenance;
- $3.4 million towards footpaths, bicycle paths and transport infrastructure, and
- $399,000 towards 6 Community budget initiatives. Our community suggested projects and voted on their preferred ideas.
Ideas from our community
The budget has been influenced by community ideas from our community engagement that commenced in November 2023. In the first stage of engagement we called for community ideas and received 30 projects and initiatives that met the criteria. In the second stage we ran a community voting program, including 6 pop-up sessions, we had a total of 1,223 people vote on their top three projects. Council has allocated $399,000 towards a number of initiatives that have been included in the proposed budget:
- $150,000 to accelerate the installation of sunshades over Merri-Bek's playgrounds
- $40,000 towards installing more seats on walking routes to the shops
- $60,000 towards installing drinking fountains in shopping strips
- $59,000 for Take the Next Step Merri-bek (domestic violence prevention)
- $60,000 for a half-court basketball ring in Glenroy
- $30,000 free basketball court and soccer field for all of Fawkner
We will be seeking community feedback on the proposed 4-year Council Budget
The proposed 4-year Council Budget is now available for viewing and feedback until 17 May 2024.You will also be able to visit our 3 customer service centres and any Merri-bek library to view the proposed budget in hard copy and give your feedback. Make sure you have your say by Friday 17 May 2023.
You will need to be a registered Conversations Merri-bek user in order to make a submission. This is to protect the integrity and fairness of the consultation and your personal details will not be used for any other purpose. See instructions below on how to register or log in.
1. Find the "LOG IN/JOIN" button at the top of the page and click to start registering. (The "Join" and "Log In" buttons are also duplicated below).
2. Select "LOG IN" if you already have a profile on Conversations Merri-bek OR select "SIGN UP" to create a new profile
3. To create your profile you will need to add: Screen name, email address, password, full name and postcode. Check the boxes that apply and click "CREATE ACCOUNT"
4. Now you can make your submission
