Hello and welcome to this week's Council Connect. Councillor Alexandria Carruthers coming to you on this very happy Friday.
So, I'll keep it brief, just a couple of things to touch on. We've got a meeting coming up on Wednesday. It'll be Wednesday, the 19th of November. That's our Ordinary Council meeting for November. I can't believe we're here already, but we are. At this meeting, we are going to be looking at endorsing the Housing and Infrastructure Master Plan documents that we've all been contributing to over the last six or so months, or all year really, but we held those community workshops in the last few months, which so many of you attended and gave your input to. These are the plans that have come out of those sessions, which will hopefully be on exhibition after this council meeting, provided that we don't encounter any issues.
After that, when it goes on exhibition, they will go on the website, so you'll be able to access all the documentation there. We have also asked for a summary of these documents to be included because they're large. An executive summary, so to speak, of all the documents will give you a high-level overview of what's in them and how to read them, since we don't read these types of documents every day. However, it's important that we understand what's inside so that we're all aligned with the direction of these plans. This is crucial because it will influence the types of funding we pursue in the future and the infrastructure projects in our communities.
In addition to posting it on the website, there will also be some in-person information sessions. One will be at Clarence Town on Saturday, November 29th, from 9am to 11am. Another will be at Vacy on the same day, Saturday, November 29th, from 2pm to 4pm at the School of Arts Hall in Vacy. There will also be a session at Dungog on Wednesday, December 3rd, from 4:30pm to 6:30pm at the Doug Walters Pavilion. Additionally, there will be a session in Paterson on Saturday, December 13th, from 10am to 12pm at the Paterson School of Arts Hall. Finally, there will be one more on that same day, Saturday, December 13th, from 2pm to 4pm at the Gresford School of Arts Hall.
So there are a lot of options. If you can't make the date in your village, you can attend any of the other dates to give feedback. Additionally, there will be people there to guide you through the documents and answer any questions you have. There'll be a spatial viewer, allowing you to view the map and see where zoning changes are happening across the Shire. So I do really encourage you to get involved. If you've attended the workshops, there's just this one more, and then it's done. But thank you for bearing with us on all this, and thank you for your involvement. We really value that.
Then this week, we've also started the conversation around FOGO. The team from Council, together with Boomerang Bags and the Wholefood Co-op, held a session at the CWA to initiate a discussion on how FOGO will be implemented in Dungog. The objective is to have FOGO rolled out by 2030, so we're at the end of 2025 now, that's four years and a couple of months until we start to roll that out. So it's important that we start having these conversations now, and people that want to be involved start getting involved in those conversations as well, so again, we can make it work for Dungog.
And then finally, Clarence Town Bridge. A couple of the Councillors and the Mayor went and had a look at the progress this week. Unfortunately, I was stuck in Sydney traffic, so I didn't make it back in time, which was disappointing. However, from all reports, I've heard it's progressing well. Everybody's happy with what's going on. I had lots of feedback saying it's a really neat, tidy, and clean site, which is important. I know that the traffic lights are a bugbear for people, we get it, but the benefits of the bridge are going to last a lot longer than five minutes stuck in traffic lights. But do keep giving that feedback, because we will look and see if there are ways to improve what we're currently faced with where we can.
This is the biggest civil construction that our Council's ever undertaken, so it's pretty exciting! It's progressing well. Mayor Raywood, Cr Lowe and Cr Dowling were impressed with how things are going when they went down on Wednesday with the General Manager and the Project Managers. So well done to everybody involved. Keep up the good work.
That's the wrap for this week. So, the council meeting, as I said, is on Wednesday. If you can make it, there's a public speaking part from 5.30pm. Don't forget to register for that. You can talk to anything on the agenda, which is also online now; we'll include links to that below. I'll also include the links and information for those Housing and Infrastructure Master Plan sessions, so you can add them to your diary and hopefully attend one to ask the team some questions about what it means for you.
So enjoy your weekend, and we'll see you again soon. Bye.
