The City of Ballarat is focused on ensuring the Victoria 2026 Commonwealth Games delivers a legacy that extends well beyond sport and will bring benefits to the city for decades to come, City of Ballarat Mayor Daniel Moloney said.
In April Ballarat was announced as one of four regional hubs that will host events and athletes as part of the Victoria 2026 Commonwealth Games.
With planning for the Games underway, the City of Ballarat is working in partnership with the Victorian Government, the Office of the Commonwealth Games and the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee.
Cr Moloney said the City of Ballarat’s focus in working with organisers is to help ensure an enduring legacy through investment in transport, housing, community spaces and tourism assets, and in local sporting infrastructure.
“Hosting Victoria 2026 events and athletes in just under four years’ time is genuinely exciting,” he said.
“But as great as that will be for Ballarat, the opportunity for our city is so much more than a major sporting event”.
Victorian Government investment needed to stage the Games will accelerate the delivery of essential infrastructure already identified in multiple master plans and strategies adopted by Council; in turn delivering on numerous Council and community priorities and bringing benefits across the municipality and the region.
“The City of Ballarat has completed strategic work including extensive community engagement across the areas where investment will be directed over the next four years,” Cr Moloney said.
“That local knowledge can help inform key decisions and help ensure a legacy of transformational infrastructure that will benefit the Ballarat community for generations.
“This is an opportunity to bring forward important work to support our growing city that might otherwise have taken 5, 10 or 20 years to be funded and built.”
For instance, as one of four regional hubs for the 2026 Games, Ballarat will host an athlete’s village for up to 2,000 competitors who will compete in events here, as well as officials and support staff.
That accommodation could create a legacy of social and affordable housing options. When considering the local rental vacancy rate is 1.4 per cent, and about 2,500 people are waiting for social housing, this investment can help address an issue of real need in the Ballarat community.
Transport investment could see works at the Ballarat Railway Station to make it fully accessible and Disability Discrimination Act compliant and development of a new forecourt will make the area safer (no reversing buses) and expand capacity at the station during major events.
Sporting infrastructure upgrades could include an additional permanent grandstand at Mars Stadium – creating ongoing capacity of 20,000 people and the ability to attract larger scale events to Ballarat.
Investment in Ballarat’s visitor economy could see the establishment of a live site in the CBD to broadcast Game’s events and provide an ongoing outdoor meeting place in the CBD.
Finally, Commonwealth Games competition here will see thousands of regional, national and international visitors flock to Ballarat, as well as showcasing our city and our region to a broad global television and online audience.
“We want to be able to look back at these Games as the catalyst for major positive change in our city, and we will continue to work with the Government and Games officials to help realise that vision,” Cr Moloney said.
