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Peri Urban Councils Victoria urges major parties to invest in growing communities ahead of election

Peri Urban Councils Victoria urges major parties to invest in fast-growing peri urban communities, calling for $230 million in funding. They highlight infrastructure needs, housing demands, and election commitments impacting their priorities.

By news@gippsland - 28th March 2025 - Back to News

Peri Urban Councils Victoria (PUCV) has called on the major parties to act promptly and invest in fast-growing peri urban communities as political hopefuls make their pitch to the electorate. PUCV Chair Cr Moira Berry said with more than 72,000 houses needed to accommodate more than 162,000 new residents in the next 15 years, fast action was required to ensure peri urban communities remained connected and liveable.

PUCV urges the next Australian government to invest $230 million in peri urban housing, liveability projects, and renew funding for the Peri-Urban Mobile Program to support growing communities

Infrastructure for growth

Cr Berry said, "We've been advocating strongly over the past 18 months to ensure all major parties understand the unique pressure urban councils are under and what they need to grow and prosper in a sustainable way. As smaller councils we can't get the sewerage, water and other services in place to make sure houses can be built."

"Our municipalities want to be part of the solution to the housing crisis but we also want to make sure any growth in our towns is backed up with roads, community centres, pools and libraries. Investment in this sort of liveability infrastructure makes growing communities places where people want to live, not just deserted communities with houses people can afford," Cr Berry said.

Fair funding for peri-urban

PUCV has called for the next Australian government to:

• Invest $230 million to fund housing enabling and liveability projects in peri urban communities
• Provide new rounds of funding for the Peri-Urban Mobile Program

"Peri urban communities deserve a fair share from the Federal Government to ensure the towns and new communities under development remain liveable and grow sustainably, while protecting valuable agricultural land and the character of our towns and smaller communities. Putting peri urban communities front and centre in this election will go a long way to achieving this outcome," Cr Berry concluded.

Budget highlights and tracker

Items from this week's Federal Budget of interest to PUCV included:

• Roads: $1.1 billion for the Western Freeway
• Housing: $49.3 million for prefabricated and modular housing construction and $800 million in additional money for the Help to Buy program
• Health: $7.9 billion to strengthen Medicare including Urgent Care Clinics and General Practitioner and Rural Generalist training pipelines
• Tax: income tax cuts over two years with the 16 per cent tax rate dropping to 15 per cent in July 2026, and again to 14 per cent a year later

Items from the Opposition's budget reply speech last night of interest to PUCV included:

• Health: $9.4 billion investment into health, including funding incentivise junior doctors to work as GP and boost Medicare bulk billing
• Housing: $5 billion for essential infrastructure to get stalled housing projects underway
• Tax: $6 billion commitment to halve the fuel excise for 12 months
• Energy: $1 billion for a Critical Gas Infrastructure Fund and introduction of an East Coast Gas Reservation to secure more gas for the domestic market

PUCV will maintain a register on its website of election pledges made by the major parties during the campaign. The register, or tracker, will help people stay informed and monitor how the parties compare across PUCV's priority areas. It will soon be available on the PUCV website.

Pictures from Peri Urban Councils Victoria website.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com