THE Horsham community remains divided about the city’s town hall and art gallery redevelopment after Horsham Rural City Council voted to increase the project’s budget.
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RELATED COVERAGE: Councillors defend town hall cost jump
Councillors approved a $200,000 increase to the project’s contingency budget at a meeting on Monday night.
Council’s technical services director John Martin recommended it allocate $317,000 to accommodate anticipated costs for completing the project.
He presented a review to council that stated the project was within budget at this stage, but that a number of issues had arisen.
These included soil contamination and the discovery of asbestos beyond that identified in pre-project environmental audits.
Councillors agreed to increase the contingency budget by $200,000.
The money will come from council’s 2013-14 surplus and other reserved income.
Horsham Arts Council president Simon Dandy said the project had to be completed.
“They haven’t increased the budget for no reason. There has been soil contamination and increases in equipment costs. These things happen,” he said.
“It is such a political thing – there will be a lot of knockers saying ‘I told you so’. But at the end of the day there are genuine reasons why they are doing it.
”We have to have faith they are managing it properly.
“Once the project is finished, it will be an amazing new venue for our region.”
Horsham’s Coller Rathgeber Property Group director Tim Coller, whose business is next to the hall, said a budget increase had been inevitable since before construction started.
“To enter a project of this size with five per cent contingency was never going to work,” he said.
“To blame contamination they knew about two years before they started, asbestos and other over-runs, is a cop-out.
“It proves council’s inability to oversee the financial control of the project.”
Mr Coller said people had had enough.
“I’m of the firm belief the majority of ratepayers didn’t want to see the project proceed in the first place,” he said.
“For that reason, they are not happy to see this increase and probably future increases to get it across the line.
“Council is trying to fool the community, but is only fooling itself.”