Business
23 July, 2026
Council approves Goulburn childcare facility
Goulburn will get a new 76-place childcare facility with the applicant committed to proceeding with the project as soon as possible.
Goulburn will get a new 76-place childcare facility with the applicant committed to proceeding with the project as soon as possible.
Goulburn-Mulwaree Council approved the new facility in Lansdowne Street at its meeting on Tuesday night (July 21).
Cr Daniel Strickland welcomed the fact the developers had given a long-term commitment to the region and they were ready to start building.
“It shows the developers have been listening to our recent conversations around childcare,” Cr Strickland said.
Cr Keith Smith also welcome the development.
“At least we have this one ready to roll and they won’t sit back land banking,” he said.
The new facility at 170-172 Lansdowne Street will operate 6.30am-6pm Monday to Friday with the capacity for 76 children and 13 staff.
The facility will cater for 20 children between the ages of six weeks and two years of age, 19 children between two years and three years of age and 37 children between three years and five years of age.
Applicant Derek Mitchell from the Hampton Property Group addressed last week’s public forum and told councillors that the centre would open in the second half of 2027 after a three-month build.
“We already have a commitment from a national childcare provider so our intention is not simply to get DA approval – it’s to construct the centre and to have it open and operating,” he said.
Mr Mitchell said the provider – Little Kindy – had committed to the Lansdowne Road site for a minimum of 15 years and up to 35 years.
He said the company had also appointed a builder “and we are advanced in those discussions”.
Deputy mayor Caitlin Flint told Mr Mitchell that there was ‘childcare fatigue’ at Goulburn-Mulwaree Council and in the wider community.
She said there was already more than 23 childcare centres operating in the area – most of them struggling to attract staff.
Other developers had been getting approval for childcare centres in well-established residential areas before turning the land over at a profit.
She asked him why the company would develop another childcare centre given there was already “multiple facilities with not enough staff”.
Mr Mitchell said Goulburn-Mulwaree was not alone in terms of the number of centres that had been approved or coming through the pipeline.
“With the centres we have opened previously they have never really struggled to staff them – much to my surprise and satisfaction.
“Certainly the standard of centre makes a difference.”
Mr Mitchell acknowledged that childcare had become a popular development in recent years.
“Some people have seen it as a pot of gold.
“For some that has been the case – for many it hasn’t worked out.
“There have been too many instances where we have seen multi-storey developments approved (or) 100 place centres approved but in my experience in the industry many of those centres will never get constructed.
“They’re just not economical – particularly the multi-storey ones,” Mr Mitchell said.
“That pot of gold is no longer at the end of the rainbow.”
Mr Mitchell said the design of the Lansdowne Road centre represented the latest generation in childcare centre design.
He said it was referred to internally as ‘farmhouse pavilion’ and was designed to reflect the agricultural connection to regional Australia.
--------------
Subscribe to The Southern Wire Newsletter for free at the link below.
https://subscribe-forms.beehiiv.com/1986abc6-c89e-4781-9db2-cf35c9dd71e4
If you value independent local journalism across the Highlands, Tablelands and Wollondilly, please click the link below to support us to ensure we remain paywall free.
Read More: Southern Tablelands, Goulburn