Murrindindi Shire Council’s General Manager of Infrastructure and Development Services, Stuart McConnell, is reviewing how council depots in Yea and Alexandra support council’s work.
“The condition of our depot facility in Yea is poor. We did an assessment in early 2018 which showed that it would require significant work to bring it up to a level where it is appropriate and safe for current and future requirements.
“ … in the interim, we are going to ensure we have a larger presence in the Kinglake Ranges area to offset any impact of the greater distance to the depot.
We plan to create a quick response resource for the Kinglake Ranges and surrounds which will allow minor maintenance issues to be addressed quickly.
“We are obviously reluctant to commit to this without reviewing the functions of the depots properly and determining our future needs”, McConnell said.
“As an interim measure while the review is underway, we are closing the Yea Depot for normal operations and relocating staff based there to the Alexandra Depot.
“While the team will be based in Alexandra in the short term, it is important to note that a guiding principle in reviewing our depot operations is the need to ensure that we are providing equitable levels of service to communities across the Shire.
We want to ensure our depot operations are structured to give the best service to all communities in the Shire at the lowest possible cost”, Mr McConnell added.
“Co-locating the teams in the one depot in Alexandra for the time being will also help us to improve our service delivery by creating greater flexibility in our operations and also in the support, coordination and management of those teams”, said Mr McConnell.
“We haven’t yet decided on the number of sites our operations teams will work from in the longer term or where these will be located.
This will be decided when the review is complete. We also haven’t made any decisions about the future of the Yea Depot and won’t do so until we have reviewed Depot operations.
The current two depot arrangement was created in 1994 through then-Liberal premier, Jeff Kennett’s council’s amalgamations creating a degree of duplication between the two shire depots.
The review is due to be completed by early 2019.
