Local Canberra shopping centres are set to get an upgrade in the budget, while a directorate cutting more than 100 jobs receives ongoing funding for city services.
The 2026-27 ACT budget will provide $65.1 million in funding for a swathe of city upgrades, including works at Kingston, Chisholm, Cooleman Court and Kippax to improve public spaces at the shops with new seating, lighting, crossings, paving and landscaping, and other improvements.
The budget will include funding for the City and Environment Directorate, which announced voluntary redundancies in late May, to continue its responsive city services, including mowing, street sweeping and horticultural services.
Minister for City and Government Services Tara Cheyne said a lot of the growth in the ACT public service since 2019 had occurred in the City and Environment Directorate.
"This is about the right size of our directorates and the right size of our service delivery," she said.
"[This] provides certainty about those frontline services when it comes to things like mowing, and to looking after our nature reserves, coordinating our volunteers... but it doesn't mean that [the directorate] as a whole is still the right size, so that's what the [voluntary redundancies] are about."
Ms Cheyne said a good portion of the city services funding would go to staff wages.
The government is also progressing the next stage on the Belconnen to City Transitway, with design of bus priority measures along Haydon Drive and Belconnen Way.
The budget is also set to provide funding to build a new active travel path between Hall and Gold Creek.
Further investments in suburban infrastructure include a new public toilet for the Umbagong District Park and new stormwater infrastructure for the Hall Village, as well as new murals on major road corridors.
Ms Cheyne said Canberra had a unique geological environment, which contributed to cracking pavements and concrete around shops, particularly aging centres built before self-government.
"Effectively our soil swells and it shrinks and that creates challenges for a lot of our civil engineering projects," she said.
"A good portion of our asset base now is in the 50, 60 year mark, particularly Tuggeranong, Belconnen and Woden, Western Creek, and we knew that. That's exactly why... a good chunk of that election commitment investment is for those."
Other funding will go to fire trail maintenance, prescribed burns and vegetation maintenance.
Access Canberra will receive a funding profile uplift so that it continues to deliver high-quality, responsive frontline services for our growing population.
