Council must borrow for SES plan

Bunbury City Council will be forced to enter into a 10-year loan arrangement if it wants to build a state-of-the-art SES headquarters and incident control centre.

This was revealed at the council's briefing session on Tuesday night and Mayor Gary Brennan said the proposal was a "very unusual" way of receiving grant funding from the State Government.

The council has been awarded about $1.1 million as part of the Department of Fire and Emergency Service's local government grant scheme to build the new SES headquarters and incident control centre at Lot 200 Robertson Drive.

However, the council has been told it will need to raise a self-supporting loan through the WA Treasury Corporation and pay-off the annual repayments and interest.

DFES will reimburse the council for this cost.

The council has described this arrangement as being a low-risk venture.

However, DFES will not repay the cost of council staff's time to manage the loan.

The loan will also increase council's $16.9 million debt and affect its debt service ratio.

The proposal also breaches the council's own policy on self-supporting loans.

It usually approves loans up to $250,000 or $400,000 in special cases.

The council has been recommended to approve the loan arrangement and advertise the proposal to the public for one month, which is compulsory under State legislation.

The SES building, to the east of Nuytsia Avenue, has been described as "aging" and not fit for purpose by the council.

Cr Murray Cook, who is an SES volunteer and will declare an impartiality interest at next week's meeting, will argue the council should agree to the deal.

"I am really desperate to get out of our asbestos building," he said.

DFES asset planning and delivery acting director Richard Wilson said there were no costs to local government.

Mr Wilson said the self-supporting loan allowed the department to fund more volunteer Bush Fire Service and SES facilities in the State than if funds were limited to a single allocation.

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