ONE councillor has asked that the go-kart track set to be built at Mount Panorama be considered in Bathurst Regional Council's budget plans.
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The project, which has been a hot topic in recent years, last appeared in a budget in 2019-20 with an allocation of $200,000 for construction and consultancy.
However, it was absent from council's draft budget for 2020-21, which was unveiled in recent days.
Deputy mayor Ian North said this is an important project and it needs to be kept on the table.
He isn't asking for council to allocate its own funds towards it, but wants council to look out for grant opportunities that could see this project progressed.
"What I asked is can consideration be given. What that means is consideration in the management plan of 2020-24 and the budget for 2020-21, is there any way to potentially seek funding that we maybe haven't looked at? Can we seek funding to get it commenced a bit more?" Cr North said.
He said the community continues to ask about the status of the go-kart track and including the project in the plans was a way to show that it hadn't been shelved.
"The community needs to know because a lot of time, money, blood, sweat and tears have already been put in on both sides of the equation. Everyone needs to know what's happening," he said.
If council could secure money for this project, Cr North believes it would help Bathurst on the road to recovery from COVID-19.
"When we come out of COVID-19, we want to generate money, we want to generate events, we want to support businesses," he said.
"This is a project council wouldn't build, we'd put it out to tender, and there's probably a number of businesses in Bathurst that would have the ability to do it."
To date, project design for the go-kart track is complete, with development consent and construction certificate approval provided.
Development consent has been acted upon, with substantial commencement demonstrated meaning that the consent will not lapse, and the tender documentation has been prepared.
By including the go-kart track as an item for consideration during the exhibition period of the draft budget, council will have the opportunity to give consideration to including this project in the budget when these documents come back to council for adoption.
