'Fingers crossed': New childcare centre waits on building cost estimates

Original plans for the new 148-place centre on the corner of Dales and Aberline roads came in "way over budget" when they first went out to tender.

The proponents went back to the drawing board and had the "bulk" of the design scaled back in order to bring down the costs.

The new designs were approved by the city council, and tenders for the new-look centre went out last week.

Bright Start Childcare chief executive officer Brent Wilson said the funding for the project was "all set to go" and he hoped to get an estimate of building costs by the end of next week.

Mr Wilson said all indications were that things were looking "positive" for the project to proceed.

"It's just a matter of the right number coming back from the builders. We've got our fingers crossed," he said.

Mr Wilson said "assuming we overcome that hurdle", work could begin on the build for the new-look project in July 2024 with the centre to be up and running by September next year.

While the scale of the build was reduced, the number of places to be offered at the centre didn't change with the plan still to include 148 new places.

Mr Wilson said the childcare shortage in the region had always been dire but the problem was only growing as the population expanded.

"The more people you talk to the more you realise how desperate the situation has become," he said.

Mr Wilson said there were no spare childcare places anywhere, and while his new centre would bring 148 new places per day he expected them to be filled by the time the new centre opens.

"That's going to alleviate a lot of the pressure to start with," he said.

"I feel like the centre is going to be reasonably full when the centre opens."

Mr Wilson said he would start advertising for the 40 staff he needs to run the centre months out from the completion of the build.

He said he was hopeful by the time it opened there would be more staff who had completed their training.

"We've got our fingers crossed that they're out there," Mr Wilson said.

Bright Start Childcare is calling for expressions of interest from prospective parents through their website brightstartchildcare.com.au.

Families face a wait of up to two years wait for childcare in Warrnambool with centres across the region at capacity with long waiting lists.

Warrnambool council has a wait list of 380 for childcare.

The crisis in the region was compounded when the operators of the Timboon child care centre - which is used by families from as far as Warrnambool and Colac - announced they would close the facility in June.