Facilities out bush
Many communities have a range of facilities including schools, stores, health clinics, public ablutions, football fields, swimming pools and Art centres. There is also a range of facilities that link settlements such as roads, airstrips, phones and satellite dishes. The facilities tend to be owned and managed by a mix of agencies. Education Departments run and maintain the schools. Community Councils tend to manage the pools and local roads but not connecting transport routes.
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Keeping these facilities well maintained is a challenge. More variable and extreme environments and poor initial construction can mean that roads are often impassable and work needed is both expensive and constrained by limited access to service providers. Confusion over the level of responsibility required by locals or managing agencies often means that basic repairs and maintenance work is underdone. This affects access to the goods and infrastructure needed to build safe and healthy lives and the ability to move between locations to work or access specialist services.
There are a number of factors that affect facilities in remote areas.
- Remoteness and distance
- Overlapping management responsibilities and different land tenure regimes
- Extreme and variable climate and geography
- Poor technology choice and maintenance arrangements
- Externally driven development with limited local involvement beyond initial investment
- High costs and limited choice of service providers
CAT works in a range of ways to assist in the development and maintenance of facilities across remote areas. CAT undertakes project management of capital and repair to civil and essential services works, especially in the
To find out more about CAT's work as well as links to useful resources and agencies click on the facilities research, resource and Service menu
