Yambil Street and Kooyoo Street upgrades have a hit a roadblock with installing infrastructure

Council is required to review the plan each quarter, as well as review the city's financial position and performance indicators.

Chief discussions were the Kooyoo Street and Yambil Street upgrades, both of which have been ongoing but have recently hit some setbacks.

Councillor Dino Zappacosta highlighted that businesses along the street had been questioning the slow and patchy development of Kooyoo Street, noting that they'd lost significant business over the months.

Director of Utilities Graham Gordon explained that they had hit a roadblock with getting certification from Essential Energy.

"The update on Yambil Street Stage Three - We're chipping away at the final details and those surrounds. There's a few materials to be delivered," he explained.

"Essential energy connection is an issue we're dealing with ... Stage 4 we've put it back, but Kooyoo Street has come as a priority, so we've moved into Kooyoo Street."

"We need certification from [Essential Energy] before we can commence putting in that infrastructure underground. We can't do that work until it gets approval."

Councillor Glen Andreazza noted issues with the plantings along Yambil Street, some of which appear dead or close to death.

The trees were recently moved from large pots in a nursery into the road, connected to a dripping system but some did not handle the abrupt change well.

"There's a number of trees there that have lost all their leaves, is there any explanation for that? They're not looking real well," Cr Andreazza asked.

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Mr Gordon said that while the trees don't look great at this stage, they are indeed still alive.

"We've clarified whether those ones without leaves have died, the advice is that there's still green within the trunk system and the tree itself so we're hoping they'll pull back," Mr Gordon said.

"If they don't survive, that's at the contractor's expense to replace those and we have trees that are ready to go in that look very similar to the other ones."

Mr Andreazza suggested that if the trees take a significant amount of time to recover from the change, they could look stunted and in different stages to the other trees on the street.

The Yambil Street Stage Three upgrade is currently expected to be completed in the March quarter of this year, with Kooyoo Street's Stage 1 expected to be completed afterwards in the June quarter.

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