Sue Brooks' Blog

Sue Brooks January 11th, 2010

I was annoyed that some Chronicle coverage recently has mentioned Council was ‘on holidays’ and not available for comment. I was and am available for comment and am reachable almost all of the time and I know that the CEO has also requested he be contacted to provide a response when required. I also understand that the Chronicle runs a fast story production process to ensure that their stories are current and that Council cannot always provide information within the few hours that the Chronicle requests to meet requested deadlines. For a complex issue Council would need longer time frames but I was very pleased today to see both the Chronicle story and a Council response printed at the same time. It is a much better outcome when both sides of a story can be aired together and I appreciate the Chronicle taking this responsible approach to providing us with balanced reporting.

When it comes to the generalised criticism that Council doesn’t support business I also get annoyed. Council does support business but is also obligated to ensure that its Local Laws and Planning Schemes etc are adhered to. The number of complaints I receive from neighbours complaining about small (and larger) businesses being conducted on residential zoned land is constant.

I wonder if the letter writers and those complaining about Council not supporting business would like to see an aquaculture factory or a panel beating shop set up next door to them? To put it simply Council needs to ensure that any business is located in an appropropriately zoned location and that once operational the business complies with environmental health and other legislation. If Council and/or our community believe there isn’t enough appropriately zoned land to faciltate business growth the upcoming land use strategy is the ideal opportunity to identify shortcomings and faciltate the appropriate zoning for business use.

I personally believe retail development is very difficult under all our current planning schemes presently and I will be doing my very best to ensure that retail development is given every opportunity to develop as our region grows. I don’t want to see small shopping centres dotted everywhere and anywhere but I do want to see corner shops and/or small retail centres in neighbourhood locations and larger shopping centres and bulky goods homemaker centres given opoortunities to develop in centralised locations.

Let’s not forget that the then Hervey Bay City Council together with State Government supported businesses such as the Bungy Jump and the Organic Foods Factory to establish. Many hundreds of thousands of tax payers dollars went into these ventures and I don’t believe it was any Government that caused these ventures to fail!

I do believe this Council is very supportive of business but if someone wants to set up a business that is contrary to our current Planning Schemes the first thing that they should do is obtain advice from staff and also speak to Councillors (specifically Cr O’Connell who has portfolio responsibility) prior to lodging applications or purchasing land etc.  Preparation is the key I believe.

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