The mayor of the Lane Cove council (LCC) has just stated that the council is considering a applying for a Special Rate Variation to increase rates above the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) rate currently set at 3.9%.

The operational plan adopted in June 2025 shows that the council is no longer operating as a going concern, and has not ability or plan to recover. It is unable to deliver its commitments to the public.

The Long Term Financial Plan (LTFP) for the council, on page 20 states,

”As a result of the many pressures on Council’s budget, including rate pegging, cost shifting, inflation, increased service expectations and increased depreciation, Council is unable to continue to maintain its operating performance ratio above benchmark. For the first time in many years,  Council has budgeted for an operating deficit in 2025/26 which will continue over the life of the LTFP” (The lifetime of the plan is 10 years)

The Income Statement on page 21 shows that there is an accumilated deficit of $13.2M over the term of the plan.

Furthermore, the under the plan roads will deteriorate to a health level of 50%, 16% below the national average; exposing the residents to unacceptable risks.

The Asset Management Plan (AMP), in the context of recovering health rating of assets such as roads and parks, back to the National Average, on page 23 states,

"“Under the improvement scenario, current modelling indicates that additional average annual renewal investment in the order of $7M per annum would be required.”
This translates to an additional $70M over the 10 year duration of the plan 

This totals to a shortfall of $83.2M ($13.2M + 70M) for the term of the plan, bringing into question if the council is operating as a going concern.

Meanwhile, council is building a $75M Sports centre (now overrun tp $82M), and the General Manager has resigned leaving the council in this financial state.

There is significant prima facie evidence to suggest the council misled the public in order to gain approval for a proposal to build a $82M Sports and Recreation Centre (SRC), particularly in relation to operational planning used to assess Capital Expense proposals. A community discussion paper which describes issues and breaches in more detail, can be accessed here.  

The council did not issue its Asset Management Plan for 3 yrs leading up to the approval of the SRC, and manipulated the Long Term Financial Plan with an intent to conceal that an asset renewal deficit of around $40M would accrue over the next 10 years if the proposal proceeded. Also, that the health of council roads and parks would rapidly deteriorate to a rating of around 50%, due to cost savings to fund the proposal.

There was strong public objections to this proposal, as it was a high cost facility of $75M, which was for the whole of the Lower North Shore, where local residents usage was estimated to be less than 20%; but Lane Cove Council was taking on the full burden of funding it, and all risks related to the construction.

Furthermore, the council was already unable to maintain its assets such as roads and parks, but was taking on significant capital expense constructions which it would not be able to maintain.

Around June 2023, members of the public first identified serious anomalies with the council planning documents and raised these matters with the council and other government oversite organisation, such as the Auditor General, Ombudsman, Minister of Local Government and ICAC, prior to the final appointment of the head contractor in August 2023.

There have been over a 1000 submissions made to these organisations, through petitions and emails, making Lane Cove Council have the highest rate of complaints to the Ombudsman for the last 2 consecutive years, and yet, no action was taken by a single organisation, now resulting in the public having to pay even more for this facility.

Furthermore, there have been 3 audits since the matter was repitatively raised with the Auditor General, including one after the June 2025 operational plan, but these issues and risks were not identified or mentioned the their report.

Commitment to a Capped Budget of $75M breached  

Due to the public concern on cost, the council mislead the public by commiting it would operate with a capped budget of $75M. Within 6 months of the project commencing the budget cap was breached by $6M (ref: Council meeting papers for May 2024). The necessary steps to implement the cap, such as fixing the price of all mandatory work, had not been taken. It is plausible that this was done to reduce the starting contract price by sharing risk, thereby meeting the $75M cap, to gain approval.

Questionable exercise to bring tender under the capped budget

All head contractor tenders came above the capped budget. The council then deligated the General Manager authority to deal with one of the tenderers to bring the price under the budget. In August 2023, the GM reported he had achieved that. However within the1st month of work commencing, $6M worth of contract variations were raised (ref: PCG meeting papers of 10th Oct 2023). The integrity of this exercise should be examined.

The Lane Cove public has lost confidence in the integrity of the council due to its reckles management of public funds and assets, and in the effectiveness of government oversight agencies.

This campaign calls for a public hearing into the events that have led to the current liquidity crisis and hold those liable to account, and investigate how all government oversight agencies, particular the auditors; failed to act or identify the issue. 

It also calls for actions to find alternative sources of funding to pay-off the $10M loan for this facility, and engage a consult to review council processes and to instill integrity, so that the public can build trust in the councils ability to responsibly manage public funds and assets.

A community discussion paper which describes issues and breaches in more detail, can be accessed here.