New Wonthaggi pool shire’s number one priority
YOU can swim in the ocean, for sure, but with a population of 43,557 in 2025, projected to rise to 47,408 by 2036, there’s a lot of Bass Coast kids who need to learn to swim first and they deserve something better than the old Wonthaggi Pool.
Built in 1976, and honestly it looks like it, the pool has been repaired and tarted up dozens of times but it’s had it. The reports to council acknowledge that.
And at last week’s council meeting the shire put the call for a new Bass Coast Aquatic and Leisure Centre in Wonthaggi at the top of a wish list of five projects for which the shire needs government funding.
Although, as pointed out by Cr Ron Bauer, always keen to see Phillip Island projects getting the prominence they need, all five have equal priority.
The list is as follows:
- Bass Coast Aquatic and Leisure Centre. Project cost $45 million (government grants of at least $30 million).
- Protecting the Western Port Woodlands. Identify potential biolinks $250,000 and implement appropriate planning controls $250,000.
- New recreation precinct for Phillip Island. Project cost $63 million.
- Revitalising the former Wonthaggi Secondary College Site. Council seeks to partner State Government.
- Calls for state-wide Coastal Inundation and Erosion Controls in the form of an overlay similar to the Bushfire
Management Overlay, plus urgent funding to respond.
The purpose of the Advocacy Priorities List 2026-2028 is to guide Council’s advocacy in the 2026 State Election and 2027 and 2028 State and Federal Budgets.
The council had also stressed the need, at its 1pm meeting last Wednesday, to continue with its campaign to retain the Australian round of the World MotoGP but by 4pm that afternoon, news broke that Victoria had lost the race.
“The first I knew about it was when I got a call for comment from the Herald Sun,” said Bass Coast Mayor Cr Rochelle Halstead last Wednesday afternoon.
You’d hope they have better luck with their priority list.
Cr Brett Tessari endorsed the advocacy strategy.
“This is great work by our advocacy team and when you go to parliament to knock on doors, it just puts you so far in front of the rest to have a document like this in front of Ministers and department heads,” he said.
But Cr Jon Temby made a pitch for environmental projects to get a higher priority from council, claiming a plan to spend $108 million on a sport precinct at Cowes and an aquatic centre at Wonthaggi, was way out of proportion with what they were seeking for the Western Port Woodlands, which he said were unique in the world.
Cr Jan Thompson said if ever there was a year that the council might have some success in getting politicians to promise funding, it was 2026, in the run up to the next state election.
Other projects needing to be funded but not in the top five included:
• Intersection upgrades along the Bass Highway and Phillip Island Roads, seeking two sets of traffic lights in San Remo (cost $26 million and $30 million).
• Wonthaggi Alternate Freight Route ($1 million).
• Accelerate urban roads program ($20 million over four years through Roads to Recovery funding).
• Review of public transport service levels in Bass Coast.
• Reduce the Wildlife Road Toll ($100,000 per annum for seven years).
• Funding to cover the cost of implementing a fourth glass bin in a regional area.
• Funding and support for evidence-based control of weeds, pest animals, and over-abundant wildlife.
• Urgent and prioritised investment in affordable Bass Coast housing.
• Increased investment in early years support, kindergarten infrastructure and maternal and child healthcare services.
• Wonthaggi Union Community Arts Centre Upgrade ($1.8 million).
• Cultural arts program funding following a more than $30 million council investment in new Performing Arts Centres.
• Bass Coast Dinosaur Trail.
