City of Melbourne considering sale of Citywide waste management company

City of Melbourne is considering the sale of its rubbish collection company, with suggestion the $300m payday could be used to finally get the Greenline riverside project off the ground.

The Greenline plan would turn an old rail bridge into a park and see an elevated boardwalk built on the river near Flinders St Station. Picture: Supplied

The City of Melbourne is considering a move that would see it turn trash into treasure, with the sale of its waste management company.

The council is eyeing off a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars through the sale of Citywide, its rubbish collection company.

The company, which is chaired by former Labor premier John Brumby, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the council with its own board.

It has contracts worth tens of million of dollars for services including rubbish collection, tree management and civil infrastructure.

But the council has confirmed it is considering selling the company which sources said could deliver a windfall of more than $300m.

The sale would help be a boon for the cash-strapped council, which is more than $200m in debt after recording a $17.1m deficit in this year’s budget.

Citywide has contracts worth tens of million of dollars. Picture: Norm Oorloff

According to its latest annual report, Citywide posted an after-tax profit of $4.49m from total revenue of $350.2m.

A council spokesman said: “We’re always looking at ways to enhance our assets to improve services for the community.”

Selling off Citywide would unleash a war chest for the cash-strapped council to pay down debt or unveil new infrastructure projects, such as the long mooted $316m Greenline project.

The project was the key piece of Lord Mayor Sally Capp’s 2018 and 2020 election campaigns, and she has previously dubbed it a “passion project”.

But the council has been unable to lock in external funding for the project which would see five inner-city precincts transformed.

Lord Mayor Sally Capp’s has called Greenline her “passion project”. Picture: Supplied

Under the plan, an old rail bridge would be turned into a park and an elevated boardwalk built on the river near Flinders St Station.

Tree-lined vistas, wetlands and casual meeting places would be established across the 4km north bank promenade from Birrarung Marr to Bolte Bridge.

The riverside rejuvenation scheme will take up to eight years to complete.

Preliminary work is already under way at Birrarung Marr with an early 2025 completion date.

The Melbourne vision has been inspired by New York’s Brooklyn Park Bridge, Paris’s Park de Docks and the waterfronts in Seattle and Auckland.

The council estimates more than 3400 jobs will be created during construction, plus more than 6400 ongoing positions by 2042.

Visitor numbers are forecast to be more than 1.1 million a year.