Augusta’s working mums say childcare the fix for township’s community life

In the lead-up to Tuesday night’s historic decision to back the Augusta and Districts Community Childcare expansion, volunteers said there was a stark need for more services in the south of the shire.

They said it was placing undue pressure on working parents and thwarting a long-held vision for growth.

At a council forum on June 19, ADCC treasurer Kylie Lucas said the Shire’s two most recent Markyt community perceptions surveys showed the community’s greatest dissatisfaction south of Witchcliffe was in family and children’s services and facilities.

“There is no score lower than this among the 16 criteria and across all demographics relating to people in this survey,” Ms Lucas later told the Times.

“It is by far an outlier indicating strong dissatisfaction.

“Across the shire, those families with 0-4 year olds were the most unsatisfied with shire’s performance in this field.”

Concerns were flagged about child care before the COVID pandemic and the housing crisis had since heaped pressure on Augusta’s young families.

The Times previously reported on long-term residents forced to move from Augusta, while families involved in ADCC reported twice-daily 100km commutes to Margaret River because additional local child care was unavailable.

Ms Lucas said the south of the shire was “a child care drought area”.

“The effects that a lack of early childhood education and care has on child development, families, businesses and communities is widely documented in the media and professional literature,” she said.

At Tuesday night’s council meeting, affected families reiterated the need for a stable childcare solution so parents could work, support older children and retain employment in Augusta.

Augusta Community Development Association spokesperson Carolyn Tenardi told the Times everyone involved had understood ADCC was previously successful in the COVID-19 stimulus grants valued at about $200,000.

Instead, shire contributions had dwindled during the three-year process.

“We have seen potential local government contributions reduce from $850,000 to $50,000 along with the withdrawal of the opportunity to activate an underutilised shire-owned building, plus exhaustive and continual justification asked of the ADCC volunteer board,” Ms Tenardi said.

“Numerous and exhaustive reports” were requested of the group, including as recently as June 19.

“ADCC have already developed a business plan, strategic road map and operating budget. Previously, a business case was commissioned by the shire in June 2020 and again in 2022-23.”

She believed the matter could have been resolved earlier through the shire’s Strengthening Community Capacity policy.