Ballarat’s $11.5m animal shelter has ‘most support’ of all priority projects

Ballarat’s multi-million dollar animal shelter has been described as “the single biggest improvement to animal welfare services in this region in a century”.

An $11.5 million regional animal shelter has the “most support” of all Ballarat council’s projects and would be the single biggest improvement to animal welfare services in the region for a century.

The council’s recent ‘Ballarat: Our Future’ survey attracted more than 1300 responses specifically about the new shelter, which is meant to relieve crowding and poor conditions at the current facility in Alfredton.

The strength of the responses, which the published report said were the “result of an advocacy effort” at the time, was such that many had to be excluded from later analysis because they skewed the rest of the data.

In the council’s December 15 meeting agenda, animal services co-ordinator Clare Douglas-Haynes said the new shelter had the strongest community backing, and CEO Evan King said it would be “the single biggest improvement to animal welfare services in this region in a century”.

Entrance to the Ballarat Animal Shelter in Alfredton.

The current brick and concrete shelter is a re-purposed abattoir building that houses more than 2000 animals in one year and up to 250 at any given time.

Its animals vary from strays to the surrendered, as well as those seized and held while a court case is heard.

The RSPCA used the Gillingham Place location for some time before Ballarat City Council took over in 2017.

Although the shelter won the 2021 Outstanding Council Animal Shelter award in a national field, Ms Douglas-Haynes – the council animal services co-ordinator and shelter manager – said an upgrade was important for animal welfare.

“There’s a code of practice which is meant to be applied to the infrastructure,” she said.

“We’re not currently code compliant – I don’t think we’ve ever been code compliant.

“We spend 90 per cent of our time cleaning and there’s no infection control over there, so if we do get an infectious disease we don’t have the capacity to look after the animals because it is such as old building.

“We know now that new animal shelter designs, they all incorporate indoor, outdoor perspectives for animals. Sunlight, natural light goes a long way to getting them rehomed a lot quicker because they’re more likely to be more comfortable in their surroundings.”

Ballarat Animal Shelter manager Clare Douglas-Haynes.

In the year before Covid, Ms Douglas-Haynes said, the number of animals at the shelter came close to 3000.

Since then, capacity has dropped to about one-third, nearly 70 animals, despite it being the busiest time of year.

“We’re not sure when those numbers are going to creep back up again, but we know that they eventually will,” Ms Douglas-Haynes said.

“As far as pets and numbers go in Ballarat, I think there’s about 26,000 registered animals, and that’s roughly about a fifth of the Ballarat population who’ve registered their animals.

“We know there’s probably another 15-20,000 animals that aren’t registered in our shire.”

What’s more, the council’s domestic animal management plan shows that while the local population of domestic animals has risen steadily in past years, there have been regular reductions in the number and percentage of cats and dogs euthanased.

Ms Douglas-Haynes said the shelter workers were proud of the achievement.

“The euthanasia stats, we’ve got to attribute that to the staff,” she said. “They put more work into the behavioural issues.”

Molly the Bordeaux shakes hands at the shelter.

A new shelter would be designed to meet the needs not only of Ballarat, but of the Hepburn, Moorabool, Golden Plains, Pyrenees, Ararat, Central Goldfields, and Hindmarsh Shires.

The roadblock is money: the City of Ballarat has promised $200,000 towards planning the new centre at a council-owned site in Mitchell Park, but it requires an estimated $11.5 million for the rest of the project.

City of Ballarat deputy mayor Amy Johnson said she would continue to call for state or federal funding, or both.

“The current shelter is extremely noisy and many of the animals are stressed due to the noise levels,” she said.

“It’s extremely hot in summer and freezing cold in winter, and despite all that we have the most incredible team of staff doing their utmost to care for every animal that comes through the doors.

“It’s a highly-used and frequented facility and our animals deserve better than an old converted abattoir.

“We know that political funding is often attributed to projects that have the most community support, so I’d love to see Ballarat people making noise and being vocal about how sorely needed an upgraded shelter is.”

Member for Wendouree Juliana Addison has been contacted for comment.