I AM both privileged and honoured to be able to serve the people of MidCoast as Mayor and to work with my fellow Councillors and the staff of MidCoast Council to deliver positive outcomes for our community.

For those who don’t know me, I was first elected to MidCoast Council in 2017, and was Deputy Mayor for two years. I have a background in government, working for both the NSW and Federal.

I acknowledge there are challenges ahead and that the community wants to see us do better.

I am committed to listening and to working hard to address what is important to the community.

I welcome any input you may have on this.

I have spent my first weeks as Mayor in discussions with Councillors and staff about the need to improve our communications, consultation, responsiveness and accountability.

I am confident you will see changes in these areas.

A growing economy is important for our future and many businesses have been hurting over the last few years.
I will be reaching out to the various business groups to see how we can work together to achieve some tangible results in a collaborative way.

I look forward to updating the community through News Of The Area on a regular basis.

I would like to assure the Tea Gardens – Hawks Nest community that while your representation on the elected Council looks different this term, you are very much part of the MidCoast local government area and the elected Council want to hear from you, so we can continue to provide outcomes of relevance to your community.

We will be setting up some formal consultation processes for your area and I will personally be making myself available to people who want to talk to the Council.

There was a Council meeting last week to decide a range of matters.

There was a report on development activity for the MidCoast area.

There was $164 million of development approved in the six months to December 2021, which was significantly higher than the previous period.

We are all seeing the increased demand for housing in the area.

It is pleasing to see that our average DA determination times, so far this year, are lower than the previous year, and that the new fast-track approval system is seeing eligible applications turned around in about nine days.

There’s a report on progress with $24m of grant funding and another $860k of capital works projects in our community spaces.

These include upgrades to beach accesses, sporting facilities, amenities, playgrounds and marine facilities.

You can see more about these on the ‘have your say’ section of the website.

This is also a great place to find out what we are currently consulting on with our community and provide feedback.

Council meetings are broadcast live and an audio recording is available on our website, along with the meeting agenda and a summary of the decisions.

There’s also a summary of decisions in the ‘recent news’ section of our website.

I encourage everyone to keep up to date with Council’s activities by signing up for Council’s weekly e-newsletter, keeping an eye on our Facebook page and using the ‘have your say’ section on our website.

We are working on improving our communications and would like to see people tap into these information sources.

 

By Claire PONTIN, Mayor, MidCoast Council