People in towns and communities across Australia use council-owned infrastructure – pools, libraries, children’s playgrounds, youth drop-in centres, museums, and health clinics – every day of the year.

These community assets enhance amenity and enrich people’s lives and experiences. They foster social interaction and help encourage participation in sporting, recreational and cultural endeavours.

Most of these facilities are relatively new, but many were built decades ago and now require significant maintenance and or upgrading if they are to continue to meet community needs. Additionally, councils need to build new facilities to cater to growing populations and evolving expectations.

To help ensure councils have assets that are fit for purpose now and into the future, the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) is calling for a Commonwealth funding program of $300 million a year for four years to improve council-owned infrastructure.

As part of this campaign for extra funding, ALGA has set up a register of council community infrastructure projects and invited local government authorities to add their plans to it – whether shovel-ready or at the advanced stages of preparation.

To be an effective advocacy tool, the register needs to contain at least 1000 projects – and to ensure this target is met, ALGA is encouraging engineers from all 537 of Australia’s local councils to add their contributions.

Many of the projects lodged thus far are a testament to the skill, imagination and hard work of engineers, planners and support staff employed at councils large and small across the country.

For example, the City of Swan’s proposal for a cultural centre for the Indigenous Noongar community in WA combines a design aesthetic with a keen appreciation of what locals, visitors and tourists alike would gain from the opportunity to experience the Noongar culture and learn about local history.

Finding the money to deliver worthwhile and beneficial infrastructure projects is never easy. It depends not just on highlighting the intrinsic value of the proposal but by clearly underlining how the community will benefit.

ALGA’s register is an important aspect of that lobbying and advocacy process; the more examples it contains the more compelling will be ALGA’s appeal to the Federal Government for more community infrastructure funding.

Engineers, CEO and mayors can register their project ideas by completing the form on the ALGA website at: www.alga.asn.au