With minimal skills and everyday tools, everyone can reduce the cost of heating our homes and workplaces often at low cost. 

The benefits will add up over time, but improved comfort will begin straight away.

Heating costs account for about a third of the average household’s energy bill.

Winter is the peak period for energy use and with cool conditions setting in, spending some time over the next week can set you down the path of making savings of up to $1000 a year.

Older homes built before 2005 have the opportunity to make the biggest savings. 

Our research found homes built before 2005, when tighter insulation requirements came in, had the equivalent of a 1.8 Star energy rating.

The potential for improvement is considerable, as these older homes represent more than 70 per cent of all Victorian homes. New houses are required to be six stars.

Stan Krpan, chief executive, 

Sustainability Victoria

THE 2017 local government community satisfaction survey results reinforce that greater Victorian Government support is needed to help councils maintain and upgrade the state’s local road network.

The survey results showed a correlation between higher performance scores where the state is investing in local infrastructure, and a decline in council performance where state investment has been withdrawn.

Metropolitan councils scored higher overall in the survey results than rural and regional municipalities. In particular, Interface councils have received higher overall performance scores from residents, buoyed by strong state investment in community infrastructure needed in growth areas.

However, state funding for rural roads concluded in 2015, along with a dedicated state funding program for rural and regional community infrastructure. This loss of $360 million over four years has been a devastating blow to rural and regional communities.

Local government maintains 129,735 kilometres of Victoria’s roads, representing 85 per cent of the state’s entire road network, and 10,500 bridges and culverts. A vast majority are found within rural and regional areas, with councils spending around $885 million on local roads and bridges in 2014-15.

Maintaining the road network is a constant challenge facing councils, with a higher proportion of rural council budgets directed towards road spending rather than core community services.

It’s a massive funding obligation that is simply beyond the means of many rural shires given their small ratepayer base, declining populations and lengthy road network.

Rural councils lack the capacity to invest more revenue into closing the asset renewal gap, which means their local roads are declining faster than they can be maintained or upgraded.

Without addressing the backlog in road maintenance, there could be serious consequences for future road safety and Victoria’s economic competitiveness.

Ten per cent of the Port of Melbourne lease – worth $970 million - was committed by the State for reinvestment back into rural and regional Victoria.

We renew our calls for the government to allocate funding from this commitment to rural local roads.

Meanwhile, it was pleasing to see that overall, many of councils’ other core performance measures were stable or had increased by one or two points. High performance areas included customer service, arts centres and libraries, appearance of public areas and waste management.

Mary Lalios, president, Municipal Association of Victoria