Hi, I'm Digby Rayward, the Mayor of Dungog. It's my pleasure to be with you again for the first Council Connect in 2025.
Certainly, a lot has happened since we joined you last year, so I'll try and give you a brief update on what's been going on. The new council, and that's exactly what is, a new council, had its third meeting last week. And as the Mayor, I'm pleased to note that this new council is developing into a great team, as far as I'm concerned, and they are working hard to engage the community. I've even challenged them at the last meeting to consider what we want to achieve over the next six months and work towards that outcome. We're here to serve the community, and that's our desire, and we need to have a really strong focus on economic growth, so that's where we're going.
So what's been happening? The Clarence Town Bridge; after all the years of advocacy and the need for a new bridge and the dramas we've had with it, we finally got the funding of about $22 million together, and the new tender for design and construction has just been awarded this week. So the process has started, and hopefully, it'll keep going within budget, and hopefully, we'll see it finish within two years. So that's a great outcome for Clarence Town and linking Clarence Town with other communities.
The other big project for Clarence Town is the draft Structural Plan and Streetscape that's just been approved to go out on public exhibition. This will be available from the 12th of February, and this draft gives a framework for future development and growth in the Clarence Town area over the next 30 years. So I really encourage the locals, and those who are not local and have an interest in this, to have a look at this draft and give it some serious thought and enter in negotiations and have your say, get involved. It's a plan for the next 30 years and we're trying to find out where the growth will be. It also mentions all the constraints we have, especially with Hunter Water, but we want to hear what you have to say. So take a look.
Now to Australia Day. What a great turnout that was at The James Theatre. Congratulations to the deserving winners. The Citizen of the Year was Trudy Balstad. I know Trudy personally from Clarence Town; what a great worker and well-deserved win that was! Junior Citizen of the Year, which was a combined win for James Ryan and Jack McBlane. Again, I know these two young fellas. Wow. What a great win, they definitely deserve it, so well done. The Volunteer Services award was another combined winner Allen Shrimpton and Brad Lean. These guys worked tirelessly for Run Dungog, Ride Dungog and they have been economic drivers with the efforts they have put in on the Common and the bike group. Such fantastic guys, doing heaps of work. Environmental Citizen of the Year was Samantha Bean, well done. Samantha runs Weed Wednesday, so anyone who has time on a Wednesday can join Samantha and do some weeding in Dungog. The Junior Sports award was Tamryn Matheson; well done, another great effort there. Congratulations to all our winners. And our Australian Day Ambassador this year was the Chair of our Chamber of Commerce, Therese McIntyre. Therese gave a very impressive speech on what it means to be an Australian; well done, Therese, that was a great speech, and thank you for that. We also welcomed a new Australian citizen. Christine took the oath at Dungog. Congratulations to her and welcome on board. I can assure everyone that I didn't ask her to eat a meat pie or down a schooner!
Then we had the storm event and didn't that cause some headaches? Well, we had bridges down, trees down, Chichester Dam running 1.5 meters over the spillway, Hunter Water put that on Amber alert, and we had the evacuation of the caravan park. I want to say congratulations to the Council staff, the SES, and the RFS, who all did a magnificent job in attending to fallen trees and roadblocks. Great, great, work from those guys minimising risks to all; well done.
There are so many things happening right now but remember you can go onto our website and check them all out.
The off-leash dog park survey is open until 9 February. I've been told over 200 people have taken the survey, so don't miss out. Have your say, put something in there, and get involved.
The caravan park in Dungog. Look, I know that's caused a lot of heartache and grief to a number of people and certainly to the Councillors. Let me reassure you that establishing a caravan park in Dungog remains a high priority for us. We know this is an important asset for our town, and we are working on it, so watch this space. It's not an easy fix, but we're onto it.
And to remind you, the bulk waste pickup has changed a little bit this year so go to the council's website to check that out. It starts on 3 February until 7 March. So get your mind around when you need to put your stuff out.
Finally, if you haven't had your animals microchipped, we have a free microchipping day coming up. So take advantage and get your animals microchipped for free on Saturday, 8 February. All the details are on the website, so go there to find out more.
That's enough from me, look after yourselves, and we'll catch you soon. Cheers.
