The Ocean Grove District Ride Centre at Kingston Park gets closer to becoming a reality, with detailed design work to be completed by mid-2024.
Greater Geelong council announced the date at Tuesday’s meeting, also recognising the outcomes from the Community Reference Group (CRG) formed in April this year to help address concerns raised throughout the submissions review panel process.
Bellarine Ward councillor Jim Mason said he was “really pleased” the final designs for the ride centre would be submitted by June next year.
“This process did begin about four years ago and during COVID it developed, when improvised jumps began to proliferate, especially around Ocean Grove and Barwon Heads,” Cr Mason said.
“The city found itself managing, making safe or demolishing makeshift jumps at a great waste of resources and many threats to the environment.
“Many suggestions from the reference group were adopted and I’d like to commend the reference group and all of the officers that have been involved in this process.”
The ride centre, which will occupy about half of the open grassed area within Kingston Park, will still leave space for other users, such as dog walkers.
Cr Mason noted challenges still remained, particularly around traffic concerns such as improved pedestrian and cycling access.
He also pointed out the likely need to upgrade aspects of Kingston Park such as the toilets and car park, which would see increased usage when the ride centre was complete.
Cr Elise Wilkinson said initial cost estimates from 2022 of $1 million or more had been revised in October this year, suggesting a likely construction cost in excess of $2.6 million.
“There’s currently no budget allocation for the construction of this facility, but finalising this detailed design will progress the project to a shovel-ready state and be well positioned for budget consideration and external funding opportunities such as grants and election commitments,” Cr Wilkinson said.
Mayor Trent Sullivan said he was a “big, big supporter of this project”.
“We have seen a massive jump in demand on our bicycle facilities across the entire municipality…(and also) in the amount of illegal jumps being made,” he said.
“We’ve got some fantastic little engineers in our community, but we do want to make sure that when people are using these facilities…that they are safe, especially when we have environmentally precious areas as we do along our coastline.”
