IPWEA Vic Blog

Coastal acid sulfate soils (CASS) occur naturally and have been present for thousands of year along victoria’s coasts and estuaries. These soils are harmless if left undisturbed. However, increased human activity in coastal regions has lead to increased risk of disturbance of CASS. Disturbance of CASS can cause impacts on the environment, infrastructure and human health. CASS-related incidents are often difficult and costly to mitigate and damage is irreversible.

The Department of Sustainability and Environment has developed the Victorian Best Practice Guidelines for Assessing and Managing Coastal Acid Sulfate Soils (BPMG) which were released earlier this week.  These guidelines have been produced to guide landowners, developers, planners and decision makers through a risk identification approach that will assist them to make decisions about the assessment and management of coastal acid sulfate soils.

Take a look at the guidelines here

Bookmark to:

The Road Safety Engineering Toolkit is a reference tool for road engineering practitioners in state and local governments. It outlines best-practice, low cost, high return road environment measures to achieve a reduction in road trauma. It considers crash type, safety deficiency, tratment type, road users, road safety investigations, case studies.

The toolkit is updated regularly and can be accessed on line through the ARRB website here

Bookmark to:

Dear Member

All council CEOs have received from the Chief Executive of VicRoads an invitation to attend a forum on 12 November to provide an opportunity for senior management within Local Government and VicRoads to exchange perspectives on the delivery of the Victorian Transport Plan and roads related programs.  In the process, it is hoped that delegates can jointly identify opportunities for enhancing stakeholder relationships and your participation in this Forum is expected to add value to the resulting deliberations.

Participants in the Forum include Jim Betts, Gary Liddle, senior representatives from local government industry bodies together with VicRoads senior management.

The emphasis will be on exchanging ideas and building relationships rather than one-way presentations.  The program can be downloaded here.

The forum is being sponsored by Roads Australia as a service to industry and there will be no charge to participants.

This will be a landmark event which will hopefully bring local government representatives and the Chief Executives of councils in Victoria together to discuss how we can achieve more together. It is also expected that councils may be represented by Councillors and senior officers who are responsible for the construction and management of roads.

Details of the Forum are as follows:

• Date: Friday, 12^th November
• Time: 9.30am to 3pm
• Venue: Manningham Function Centre, 699 Doncaster Road, Doncaster (Melway Ref:
  Map 33; E12)
• Theme: Delivering the Victorian Transport Plan – The Partnership Imperative

To assist with accommodation and catering we ask all participants to register.  To do so or to enquire about details, please contact Rachael Rooney on rachael@roads.org.au or 5942 7222.

Regards,  Bob Seiffert

Bookmark to:

The Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) launched the Green Star – Public Building PILOT tool in October 2010 to support the sustainable planning, design and construction of high-performance public buildings. 

To be eligible for Green Star assessment, projects must meet all four provisions of the Green Star Eligibility Criteria, space use, spatial differentiation, conditional requirements, timing of certification.

Take  a look at the Green Star Rating Toolkit found on the GBCA website.

Bookmark to:

 The IPWEAvic 2009/2010 Annual Review Document can be read on line.  Access by clicking here

Bookmark to:

DPCD Local Government Victoria, under the Council’s Reforming Business intitative, launched a Procurement ehub on Thursday 21 October 2010.  The ehub is for those who are interested in Procurement in Local Govenrment and contains a useful procurement toolbox and a discussion forum where you can talk online with other procurement practitioners.

Bookmark to:

The Summer 2010 edition of SPECnotes, the quarterly newsletter from NATSPEC, is now available – access it by clicking hereThe latest TECHnotes Index can be viewed here. 

Please visit the natspec website to view updates on TECHnotes and the Specifying ESD TECHreport

Bookmark to:

View WHK Market Update for 28 October 2010 here

For more information visit WHK website here.

WHK new address is Level 17, 181 William Street, Melbourne Vic 3000. WHK main telephone contact number has also changed to 03 9258 6700.

Bookmark to:

Results of 2010 Elections for Directors to IPWEAvic Board announced on 14th October 2010 at AGM

The Incoming Board of Directors comprises:

• Mauro Covacci, Wyndham City Council (re-election)
• Claude Cullino, CCF(re-election)
• Ross Goyne, Ross J Goyne Consulting Pty Ltd (re-election)
• Matthew Hill, Wyndham City Council
• Thomas Kuen, Melbourne Water (re-election)
• Michael McGlade, Wyndham City Council (re-election)
• David Powell, Boroondara City Council (re-election)
• Vicki Shelton, City of Greater Geelong (re-election)
• David Suttcliffe, Central Goldfields Shire Council (re-election)
• Mark Varmalis, Shire of Yarra Ranges (re-election)
• Steven White, Boroondara City Council

The outgoing Board members are Bruce Douglas and Geoff Glynn and thier work over the past few years has been very much appreciated.

Take a look at each Board members profile Board Profiles 2010 Elected Board

Bookmark to:

To the Institute of Public Works and Engineering Australia –

I am writing to you with news of the ACELG ‘Learning in Local Government’ project, a research and consultation process regarding the Education and Professional Development needs of local government in Australia. At the same time as progressing some specific training initiatives, ACELG aims to undertake an inventory and gap analysis of the sector as a whole to inform future program development. I attach a file (click here to download) which contains links to a discussion paper as well as an online survey, and I would like to invite your participation.

LG Sector Survey

Local government councillors and employed staff are invited to complete the online survey, so if you could distribute this flyer to others who may be interested that would also be much appreciated. I would like to get a stronger response from your membership – at present only a small number of the over 400 respondents are your members! Survey responses are due by the 5th November.

Making a Submission

Local government associations and training providers are also invited to review the inventory of training programs, discuss training delivery challenges in the local government sector, comment on identified training gaps, and discuss medium-term opportunities for the development of new programs. Submission deadlines have been extended, and are due by the 20th November.

Kind Regards,

Sarah Artist,  Program Manager, UTS Centre for Local Government, www.clg.uts.edu.au 0409 830 283

Bookmark to: