Baw Baw Shire Council in Victoria recently took home the local government category at the annual Australian Road Safety Foundation awards.
Council’s Infrastructure Planning, Program and Waste Team have won the ‘Local Government Initiative’ award at the ceremony in March.
Baw Baw Shire was selected from a pool of nine finalists from various local government areas and other organisations across Australia.
Mayor of Baw Baw Shire Joe Gauci said that this was a well-deserved award for a team that is passionate about road safety, constantly going above and beyond the call of duty to improve road safety across the municipality.
“The award recognises the team’s outstanding efforts in funding advocacy, community safety education and continual works on the ground to provide our shire with the safer roads it deserves.
“In particular, the award recognises the team’s tireless advocacy in recent years to obtain a record amount of almost $2.5 million in funding from the Federal Government’s Black Spot Program for eight sites to be treated with road infrastructure improvements, significantly improving their safety for road users.
“Over the last few years Council has worked in close collaboration with VicRoads, Victoria Police, TAC, and the local community to identify safety Black Spots where there have been high rates of casualty crashes, and implement road safety improvement works to reduce the number of casualty crashes within the Shire.
“I would like to personally congratulate the team for their tremendous efforts over the past few years and for receiving this nationwide recognition.
“This is a great encouragement for us as a Council to keep acting on road safety.”
The award was presented to Council’s Infrastructure Planning, Program and Waste Team by Transport for NSW.
Baw Baw Shire Council was also a finalist for the ‘Innovation Award’.
