Get a funding boost from the Better Boating Program

The NSW Maritime Better Boating Program (BBP) is a State Government grants program that provides waterways infrastructure for the benefit of the boating community and marine sector on New South Wales waterways.

Projects funded include the provision of public wharves and jetties, boat ramps, sewage pump-out facilities, dinghy storage and related feasibility studies.

The BBP, which has up to $5 million available each year (for a five-year period until 2013/14) consists of three funding categories:

• Regional Infrastructure Grants (up to $2.5 million a year);
• Sydney Harbour Boat Ramps (up to $1.5 million a year); and the
• Sharing Sydney Harbour Access Program (up to $500,000 a year).

Since the first grants program in 1998/99, NSW Maritime has awarded NSW councils, Government agencies, boating groups and community groups over 500 grants worth more than $25 million. This has included more than $340,000 in grants to State Parks and Reserve Trusts.

In May 2010, with the support of a BBP grant of $16,261, Lake Keepit State Park Trust installed an access pontoon at Lake Keepit.

The new pontoon is portable, allowing it to be moved up or down the shoreline with changing water levels. This provides easier access to the lake for boating, kayaking and fishing, especially for the elderly and people with mobility problems.

Local NSW Maritime Boating Safety Officers are very impressed with the innovative pontoon, which has been well received by lake users, and are keen to encourage this type of infrastructure for other inland dams and lakes across NSW where water levels significantly fluctuate with the seasons.

For further information regarding the BBP please visit the NSW Maritime website at www.maritime.nsw.gov.au, send the BBP team an email on grants@maritime.nsw.gov.au or contact NSW Maritime’s Infrastructure Grants Manager, Lisa Anderson, on (02) 9563 8748.

Applications for Regional Infrastructure Grants are generally called for at the beginning of June and close at the end of July every year.