Hello Dungog Shire, Councillor Liam Ley here bringing you this week's video message.
Before I start, I just want to address the rumors. You may have picked up the local paper this week, and if you haven't, yes that is me with my beautiful dog Honey. As you can imagine, the phone's been going off the hook from talent scouts trying to get her down for her next engagement, so it's been hard trying to keep her head not as big as it already is :)
Next to the news article and the photo, you'll also see something that I've been super passionate about, something that I've been talking about before I even ran for council, and something that I really wanted to see happen as a resident; a dog park in Dungog. I'm happy to say I did put a motion forward on that and it was passed at the last Council meeting. This means that the Council is now directed to go out and find a suitable location for an off-leash dog park in Dungog shire, and also funding resources and a whole bunch of other things. Looking into key considerations such as location to attract tourism as well as promote usability, accessibility for older people, residents, and people with disability, as well as ensuring safety for dogs and handlers and all that kind of good stuff. So that's really exciting. They will go away, produce that report, and it will come back to Council to vote on. This will then go to the community for comment. This is really important, and something that I really want to start is getting the community much more engaged in this process: the community feedback. It's super important. This is your dog park. I really, really encourage you, if you have any concerns or ideas, once that is up for public debate, make sure you submit that.
You'll also see on the front cover of the paper another good thing for council, that's the DA improvement. This is huge. All Councillors, as well as the Mayor, were talking about this recently. There have been some really positive steps towards this in Council. The Mayor also introduced a minute at the last council meeting to get some processes, particularly the consultation phase, up and running. It's a really positive step to see the DA time limits are trending down. This is something that we will continue to focus on, but it's a really good, promising first step.
If you turn the page, you'll see more articles and motions from Dungog Shire Council's last meeting. The first two pages are all about Council decisions passed in that last meeting. It really fills me with optimism to see these changes coming, and hopefully, it does for you as well.
A key one from Councillor Paton that he pushed forward was essentially looking at how to unlock more housing potential opportunities in the shire, and the Council was looking at investigating and producing a report on that. This is essential for meeting government mandated housing target opportunities over the next decade. It also ties closely to addressing the lack of housing and affordability in the region, which is definitely a priority for myself, as well as all the other Councillors and the Mayor. This is a really good step forward in that direction as well. Check out the News of the Area, grab yourself a copy, and you'll see me and Honey there on the front page.
Moving on, we saw an exciting announcement this week for a new kids' play park and equipment space at Tucker Park. The park will be closing on Monday 2 December to allow those works to commence. It is always good to see these community assets getting off the ground, particularly when you're talking about kids' play spaces and stuff like that.
Lastly is the Dungog Street Party. This is a massive event this year, and I really encourage everyone to get down to Dowling Street. Parts of Dowling Street will be closed for the Christmas party tonight, starting at 4pm. There's going to be heaps on from street performances, CWA is doing an elf workshops, I hear Santa's going to be making an appearance, there are costume contests, a free movie down at the James Theatre starting at 7pm, reptile shows, face painting, extended trading hours for a lot of participating businesses to allow for Christmas shopping and much, much more!
It's super important to get down and support local businesses. It's also really important to support events like this so that they can continue to get bigger and bigger every year. I will be down there with the now infamous Honey as well. Make sure you come and say hi if you see me. If you have any issues or concerns that you want to raise, please feel free to have a conversation with me about it. I've had a lot of small conversations this week with a lot of people about some ideas that may seem small, but that's something that we can all address and work on, and it builds up to make big changes in the community, and that's really positive.
That's it for me for this week, hopefully I'll see you tonight down at the street party. If not, I'll see you around no doubt. Have a good weekend. Thank you.
