Preschool needs extra funding support to get off the ground, Murray River Council says

Aug 03, 2021

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Murray River Council is hopeful it will have an outcome regarding a funding application to the Federal Government soon, saying the new Moama Preschool “is entirely contingent on additional money from the Commonwealth to enable council to deliver the project in full”.

The Council applied for $2.9million under Round 5 of the federal funding program, after receiving $1.5 million through the NSW Government’s Start Strong Capital Works Program.

The $1.5 million was successfully obtained for the construction stage of the project but needs “all the funding to line up” in order for the preschool to be built.

“We want the community to know that the project is not on hold, we are simply waiting for outcomes of funding applications to proceed,” Murray River Council Mayor Chris Bilkey said.

“This is the nature of a lot of big projects that the council needs to deliver. In many cases we don’t just get a big lump sum of money to get things done; we have staff working hard to secure funding from a range of sources to make sure these important priority projects for our community can get up.”

“We are hopeful we will have an outcome regarding the application to the Federal Government soon.”

The new preschool project has been gaining momentum over the last few years with the current preschool, located at Regent Street Moama, operating at capacity with an expanding waiting list.

Council has allocated $1.5 million to the project and engaged a local architectural company to deliver detailed drawings and other architectural services to progress the project to approval stage.

The proposed site for the new preschool is located within the Moama Recreation Reserve and has the capacity to double the number of places offered for three year old and four year old programs.

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