THE development of the Berninneit cultural centre in Cowes has been shrouded in secrecy from the day it inexplicably took over from the development of a new Phillip Island Recreation Centre, on the corner of Phillip Island and Ventnor Road, as the Island’s number one priority.

How did that even happen and who made it happen, given the huge demand for sporting facilities for an expanding, younger Island community?

For goodness sake, the words “sport”, “pool” and “aquatic” aren’t even mentioned in either the 2024 Federal Advocacy Priorities or 2024 State Advocacy Priorities, key documents used by the shire to go after Federal and State grants.

Notwithstanding that the shire believes it will cost $52 million to develop a full-service aquatic centre on the ‘Carnival Site’, they should at least be applying for the $10-$15 million it would cost to develop stage 1 of the sporting facility, along the lines of what has already been built for the Lang Lang community at Caldermeade.

Incredibly, the Bass Coast Shire hasn’t even made an application to Round 2 of the Federal Government’s Growing Regions Program, which opened on September 5, 2024 and will close on October 10, 2024 with $393 million up for grabs for projects exactly like the one proposed for the Carnival Site.

It’s almost 12 months since Berninneit was opened with so much haste, to fit in with ex-mayor Cr Michael Whelan’s program, that it still didn’t have the right windows in place, much less be ready to try and pass its much-vaunted Passivhaus certification.

And yet we still haven’t seen how it has performed financially or heard how it suits community needs and what changes might be made.

At a ‘Meet the Candidates’ Night’ in Cowes last week, it was clear the community still has a lot of questions to ask about Berninneit and equally clear, that if the shire council had insisted on more transparency about what has easily been the biggest capital works project in the shire’s history, much better results might have been achieved.

The building is there now, and there are a lot of things to like about its style, form and function.

But one of the first orders of business for the new council, after it is elected next month is to call for a full review of the project, its cost, what still needs to be done and all aspects of its operations including fees and rules governing its use by the local community.

It’s entirely appropriate, after 12 months of operation, that we find out if we’re getting value for money and what might be done to improve its operations.