Eaton Bowls Club building to get further infrastructure upgrades following scrapped road upgrade plans

The Shire of Dardanup will shift its focus to bowls club infrastructure upgrades after having nearly $200,000 left over from a previous project. Council unanimously voted to proceed with four projects around the Eaton Bowling Club & Senior Citizens Centre totalling $146,000. The works include an upgraded pedestrian ramp on the north side of Pratt Road and an upgrade to the crossing point on the road. There will also be a new pedestrian ramp into the club as well as a drop-off bay constructed at the front of the building. The drop-off bay will accommodate up to two light vehicles. $465,163 was originally budgeted for roadworks to Pratt Road, but due to costs being well over estimates, plans were scrapped and only $278,235 was spent on a carpark. Dardanup shire president Tyrrell Gardiner said the extra money would be utilised after a change in plans. “We built the new building three years ago and the plan was to actually really change and really treat Pratt Road, slow traffic down out the front,” he said. “We had an allocation of ($465,000) but quotes came in at six to seven hundred thousand to do what we wanted to do at the front there. “So then we said ‘okay because of the growth of that club, we need more parking’, we did the parking out the back behind the bowling club on Eagle Crescent and that took up around $190,000 and then obviously we had that extra money left.” Cr Gardiner said the further projects would continue to bring needed infrastructure to the club. “We spent $278,000 on the back car park which was great, but we still didn’t satisfy all the needs of the seniors that are part of that club,” he said. “We’ve come back and through the process... we’ve identified those items and prioritised them and haven’t spent any more than we have left.”