The cost of Warrnambool saleyards' new roof has blown out to $1 million but soaring profits have softened the impact.
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The city council is confident it will soon get extra funding to proceed with the project and is pushing ahead with design plans.
In this year's council budget, $600,000 was set aside for a new more efficient roof which would also harvest rainwater, but Cr Robert Anderson said it would now cost about $1 million.
After suffering an initial profit drop when the new Mortlake saleyards opened, farmers returned and have driven up profits at the council-owned facility to $253,000 this year - more than double what the council had budgeted for and up on last year's profit of $172,000.
Councillors unanimously voted at Monday's meeting to allow $72,079 from the roof tender contract to be spent on the design works despite not yet having secured the funding to complete the project.
Cr Anderson, who has been on the saleyards committee for the past three years, said he was confident the council would be able to source outside funding.
The council is awaiting the outcome of a submission to Regional Development Victoria but he said that if that was not successful, the council would look to fund it themselves.
He said by letting part of the tender and getting the design work done meant the project could go ahead as soon as the money was guaranteed.
Cr Mike Neoh said that whenever a project was proposed, the true costs were never really known until the tender process.
Mayor Tony Herbert said the aim was to have the works completed in time for next year's 50th anniversary celebrations of the saleyards, which he said were "striving ahead in leaps and bounds".
Cr Peter Hulin said if the council had acted when it should have years ago it "wouldn't be paying this sort of money" for the new roof.
"As we all know, things go up and this has gone up a lot," he said.
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