Wellington North Township and Wellington County will likely meet a Nov. 1 deadline to submit an application for a $2.4 million road project here.
Wellington North council met in special session on Oct. 28 to approve the “expression of interest” to put the application to the province in the works and county council was expected to put its stamp of approval on it at its meeting Oct. 31.
The county and township are making a joint application to the province’s Small, Rural and Northern Municipal Infrastructure Fund. If approved, provincial funding would be about $1.725 million for the project.
A similar application was made under the Municipal Infrastructure Investment Initiative – Capital Program (MIII) earlier this year, but was unsuccessful.
“Staff at the township and the county have discussed the new funding opportunity and have agreed that the Frederick Street East project in Arthur is well suited for the program and are planning to proceed with submitting an expression of interest for this project,” Givens said in an earlier report to council.
“The project would entail the replacement of sanitary sewer, sanitary forcemain, watermains, repairs to storm sewer, curb repairs and asphalt resurfacing on Frederick Street from George Street to Eliza Street. Additionally, curb repairs and asphalt resurfacing would be completed on Eliza and Charles streets.”
Givens said the township will be the “lead applicant” for the funding request to the Ministry of Rural Affairs.
“The expression of interest will be altered slightly from the original application in hopes to make it more appetizing to the approval authorities,” Givens said in his earlier report. “Focus will be put on the health and safety of our residents. The guidelines clearly indicate that joint applications will receive additional consideration.”
Givens told council at its special meeting that much of the engineering work has already been done.
“It’s a major project with a major impact in Arthur,” Givens said Monday. “I think it’s a strong contender.”
Givens said if the province approves the first stage of the application an announcement on whether it is approved could come by February. If approved tenders for the work would be sent out in early spring. The project could be completed by late 2015.
“It’s long overdue,” councillor Dan Yake said. “Hopefully we can get the funding this time.”
