G’day, it’s Digby Rayward here, and it’s my pleasure to present this week’s Council Connect.
Look, you often hear me banging on about how there’s a lot happening at Council, and certainly there is, but a lot of it’s behind the scenes, and the community is not fully aware of the work done by our General Manager and the Executive Leadership Team.
You would have put faces to the names in the newsletter that was sent to all ratepayers a couple of weeks ago, identifying the team. Let me tell you, they have a new vision and plenty of enthusiasm. That’s really great, and I’ll give you a couple of examples. I saw this on the agenda for this month’s council meeting. It was a busy meeting that went for a couple of hours. Everyone wanted to have a say, which is what they’re entitled to do. So we support that, of course. But under the Planning and Development Report, you’ll see that we’ve successfully secured participation in a thing called the Accelerated Development Assessment Pilot Program.
Now, this is intended to improve the efficiency and timely determination of DAs for development applications, which has been a major problem in the past. Our staff is really working hard to make sure that people who want to do some development in the shire can get it done, fully supported, and obviously without breaking any rules. This digital planning assistant will do that. And the team is also taking on board a new digital planning assistant called ‘Daisy’. So once the staff get a hold of that, hopefully the roadblocks we’ve seen in the past about putting in a DA, and the issues you’ve had, will start to be smoothed out, and I’m really pleased with the way that’s going.
Another major item at the council meeting was a project plan to update the Local Environmental Plan, the Development Control Plan, and the Infrastructure Contribution Plans. This all follows on from our Housing and Infrastructure Master Plan, which we adopted in April. Now, I know all your eyes have clouded over, and you’re thinking, “Oh, what are all those funny words, right? But I tell you, these documents are fundamental to the future of the shire and are building the roadmap for us going forward. They’re major steps in how we do business. In the end, if you want to do something in council, whether it’s a DA or this, the LEP (Local Environment Plan) will set the rules. So it’s absolutely vital.
Now let’s get on to a couple of local issues that you would have seen at this month’s Council meeting. One I brought up was the Brig O’Johnston Bridge. I’ve gotten a lot of inquiries about that. You will see our new bridge going up, and the council guys are doing a great job organising that. The new bridge is costing $22 million to build and is going well on budget and on schedule. The question that comes up is what’s happening with the old bridge, and, you know, I’ve heard some second- and third-hand rumours that it’s going to cost $30 or $40 million to restore it. We just want to get a bit of clarity from the government on how much it’s actually going to cost. Is it going to cost $40 million? Is there any other way around it? Why does the bridge have to be built to a standard to take traffic? What are the other options available for the bridge? Once we have a bit of clarity on that, we’ll be able to share it with you.
Now, a couple of very pertinent things for the community. The swimming pool hours. There was a strong request to open the pool a couple of days early. Our team pointed out that you couldn’t open Dungog without opening Clarence Town as well. So the cost of opening the pools per day is about $700. That’s $1,400 for two days. And those who are watching our budget know that we are running substantially in the red.
And one of our ways to combat that is: if nothing is in the budget, it won’t be approved unless you can show where you’re going to get the money from elsewhere. So, unfortunately for the swimming pool enthusiasts, we haven’t been able to agree on the extra two days. We felt that $1400 could be better invested elsewhere.
The second topic of community interest is the tree on Hospital Hill and the proposed roadworks for this site. It’s great to see such passion from the community. I love it. I love community involvement. But as we’ve pointed out, Council is not in a position to know what the outcome of that tree will be until our team does due diligence and gives a report to the Councillors for consideration. This report will outline all the available options.
Can we save the tree? Can we not save the tree? What can we do with the road? So, you know, we’re not going to direct our staff. They’re professionally competent. They know what they’ve got to do, and they will do their due diligence. When that report comes back, it’ll be open to everyone, and we’ll have a community discussion on it. So, let’s wait and see what happens with that one. Watch this space!
Another item on the meeting agenda was correspondence from the government regarding a number of issues. Again, very disappointing. Our efforts to get an accessible ramp for people with disabilities at Paterson Railway Station haven’t gone well at this stage. But don’t worry. We’ve been advised that if you get a taxi, you’ll get some money back for the taxi ride. Anyway, have a look at the report, and of course, we will be taking this further. We don’t think it’s adequate.
