Completion of Government Heritage Restoration Program

The 'Renewing Victoria's Past' Report, a review of the Government Heritage Restoration Program during 1997-98, was released on September 21.

This year marked the final year of the $16 million program, which began in 1994.

Since that time it has undertaken a total of 213 projects throughout the state, focussing solely of Government-owned buildings. The key objectives of the program were:

• improvement of the physical condition of the government-owned heritage structures across the state. This involved various levels of intervention from urgent stabilisation to detailed conservation works and adaptation
• increased awareness of heritage conservation issues and the benefits of using heritage buildings within departments and agencies.

The various projects undertaken by the Program comprised continuation of major projects, such as the restoration of the State Library and Supreme Court; medium scale capital works ($50,000 - 250,000); overdue maintenance projects; funding for small-to-medium scale projects and joint projects, such as the Botanical Gardens Observatory site, where heritage restoration works coincided with other new developments.

The Program arose from the Victorian Commission of Audit of 1993 which examined methods of ensuring the proper management of government assets, appropriate maintenance of those buildings and sites still required for delivery of government services, and selling or finding alternative uses for those no longer required.

The Heritage Act 1995 requires that places places included on the Victorian Heritage Register be preserved and maintained.  The Act provides for the serving of repair orders on owners (including the Crown) if appropriate maintenance is not performed.

Although the GHRP did much to alleviate the backlog of maintenance on the Government's 400 registered buildings, it was generally not possible to provide follow-up funding for works due in future years.

As a result, Government agencies such as the PTC and Department of Justice have now adopted individual conservation plans, which set out which work should be performed in the next 5 and 10 year periods respectively.

Providing a proper maintenance strategy can be implemented through such means, there should not be a need for similar 'one-off' injections of funds such as the GHRP in future.

('Renewing Victoria's Past' Report of the Government Heritage Restoration Program, Dept of Infrastructure, September 1998)