South Bruce Peninsula Mayor Jay Kirkland is highlighting recreation, construction and infrastructure work when looking ahead at 2026.
“I think just construction-wise is main street in Wiarton. 2026 will be the completion of it,” says Kirkland, explaining in 2025, the Town worked on Gould Street which will be completed in 2026.
It’s a roughly $5.7 million project. A notice from the Town in May describes the work as the removal of existing infrastructure and the installation of sanitary sewers, storm sewers, watermain, curb, gutter and sidewalk work, boulevard restoration and road reconstruction.
Kirkland says, “When we started the Big Dig, that’s where all the traffic was directed to. Then we redid it this year,” says Kirkland, noting the Town wants to finish Gould Street before doing the second portion of the Big Dig.
He says that next phase of Big Dig work is set to get underway in 2026. “We didn’t want to start the south of town main street– the Big Dig on Berford Street until we completed Gould Street on top of the hill, because it was just going to be a little bit to much traffic because we might have to redirect some traffic while we’re doing the southern portion of Berford Street this year.”
Meanwhile, the Town continued to move forward with plans for Wiarton’s new town hall. “We’ve now accepted the tenders, we’ve got a contractor.” says Kirkland who notes they’ll be focusing on getting the new town hall portion of the building completed, and they haven’t finalized what’s going in there yet, but notes they’re looking into whether or not other government services could go in the other portion. He says, “We’re still in negotiations on that right now.”
People had talked about using the other portion of the new town hall in the former Sobey’s building by Bluewater Park for recreation space, but it was decided the ceiling wasn’t high enough for some of the desired activities. Kirkland says the Town will do a recreation master plan for Bluewater Park and Wiarton. “Maybe a gymnasium, there are several different things, splash pad, a more accessible playground. There’s quite a few things that will be brought up in this master plan.” Kirkland says that includes the existing arena.
Another highlight for Kirkland is that the County increased ambulance bay hours in Sauble Beach at the recently created paramedic station in the Family Health Team building. “It was only so many hours a day that it was manned and now the County has increased the hours, so it’s a full-fledged ambulance bay now,” says Kirkland.
The Town also allowed residents to keep backyard chickens in 2025. Kirkland notes, “It’s self-policing and people are respecting the bylaw and I haven’t heard of any issues.”
Kirkland also highlights a transit study being done which is supported by provincial funding and will look at a transit system for Bruce, Grey and other neighbouring counties.
Of note in the town, Saugeen First Nation changed the Sauble Beach sign to read “Saugeen Beach” this past July, in celebration of the conclusion of a decades-long court case which decided the beach belongs to the First Nation further to the north, past the 6th Street washrooms. Kirkland says the federal government is due to complete a survey to determine where the ownership changes along Lakeshore Boulevard east to west along a mile and a half of the road. He says the Town wants the federal government to weigh in on who will have ownership of Lakeshore Boulevard. He expects the compensation portion of the beach boundary case is anticipated to get underway in 2026.
Kirkland says the Town recently passed a resolution to hire a consultant for Sauble Beach, explaining, “Whether we go through a rebranding, whether we keep the branding, reaching out to First Nations to be involved with it and see if they’re interested. So that’s kind of exciting and hopefully we can move forward with that.”