ACT Govt Shared Service staff to relocate to Gungahlin

Written by Alan Kerlin Monday, 09 January 2012 12:20

Great news: the ACT Government has received nine expressions of interest to build the new ACT Gov't office block in Gungahlin town centre.

And the Government has also advised that the 500 staff to be relocated to Gungahlin will be the Shared Services department, currently housed in Woden.

GCC meetings have featured presentations by two of these proponents (both already owning land behind the Emergency Services and with plans ready to go), so to know there are another seven out there is quite intriguing.

But it does underline exactly what we have been saying to the ACT Government for more than five years - instead of guessing what the commercial market is like, put the land out there and see. From our discussions with various developers, we've always known that the limiting factor has not been interest, but land released to the market.

It's harder now, with the squeeze of commercial credit, and had land been released four years ago, we'd probably already have office blocks by now.

And this is where having the ACT Government put their 'money where their mouth is' has been the necessary catalyst.

We believe that once this goes in, the whole local jobs situation will start to snowball.

Most welcome to see after so many years of GCC lobbying.

And if you'd like to work locally, you now know what vacancies to start targeting!