Hume councillor Naim Kurt has put heat on keeping community centres doors open on hot days.
At the 9 February council meeting, Cr Kurt asked for council investigate the current support options available to the community during heatwaves.
This includes investigating extending opening hours of community facilities such as libraries, global learning centres, leisure centres and senior centres as cooling spaces.
Cr Kurt said the heatwaves were a hazard to the community, especially with many residents experiencing cost of living pressures.
“Sometimes even running an air conditioner is simply not always affordable, and sometimes even our own households aren’t energy efficient and able to keep our houses cool,” he said.
Cr Kurt said during the recent heatwaves, plenty of councils opened up libraries and leisure centres for the community, some with extended hours, but the same services weren’t provided in Hume.
“I think there is an opportunity for us as a council … to step forward to look at some of the ways that we can open some of our council facilities up, make them available for our community when there is prolonged heat days in a row, perhaps over 35 degrees where it goes three or four or five or six days in a row,” he said.
Cr Kurt’s motion comes as council was forced to close the Hume Global Learning Centre in Sunbury on two days in January due to air conditioning failures. These days were both in heatwaves.
Cr Jarrod Bell said he acknowledged the issue in Sunbury.
“There wasn’t a policy position in place that says that if the library were to close we were to make another space available there and I think our officers did ultimately do something in that space but … a decision has to be made on the day and wasn’t guided by a policy position or a program, we had to do that intentionally,” he said.
Council assets, operations and sustainability director Danielle Prentice said the air conditioning issue was caused by a component failure during the extreme heat, which has been fixed.
