Hello and welcome to this week's Council Connect video. Councillor Alexandria Carruthers here with you to give you a quick update on where things are up to with Council in the last week and what we've got coming up in the next little while.
We had a council meeting on Wednesday night, if anyone tuned in online. As part of that Council meeting, the Clarence Town Flood Study was adopted.
So, a few weeks ago, the draft for that one went out on exhibition, and then it came back to Council on Wednesday for adoption. So that's a really important update for Clarence Town. This study gives a much clearer picture of how flooding behaves in that area of Clarence Town, including the impacts on properties, roads, and evacuation routes. We don't have much control over the floods themselves when they occur, but we certainly need to mitigate risks where we can. Also, importantly, the plan was shaped by local feedback. So again, putting those documents out on exhibition for 28 days, we did get some feedback through there. That will now guide future planning and development decisions for emergency response, and it will also help us advocate for greater flood resilience in Clarence Town. So good to see that one progressing and moving through.
And next up, we have the Draft Operational Plan and Budget, now on exhibition. At Wednesday night's meeting, we endorsed the draft to go on exhibition. This sets out what Council plans to deliver over the next year, everything from services to day-to-day operations through to major projects and infrastructure works. It'll look at how funds are spent and where investment is going across the Shire. So it is important that everybody, if you can, have a look at this document and provide some feedback on it.
On Wednesday night, I also asked that we hold some in-person sessions on these drafts, because they are important, and the Council agreed as a whole. So we will do that, and then we'll also make sure there are printed copies around the shire. So more information on when those sessions will be held will be posted shortly, but we did, as a Council, after I raised it, agree that, yes, we need to do some in-person sessions to explain to people what's included in these documents, what the plans are, and how the money is being spent. It also provides the opportunity for people, our residents, our ratepayers, our community, to give feedback on that, because these plans guide what gets done over the next 12 months, really, so that it's really important for everyone to engage in. And I really can't express that enough.
And finally for today's update, we're doing a big push at the moment on tourism across the Shire. You may have noticed on socials that there's been a bit more activity around promoting Dungog as a place to visit. I know I've seen a few extra bits of content on the @visitdungog Instagram account. There's been some great video footage being put up recently.
So we're doing a bit of a call out to our accommodation providers, our cafes, our pubs, our local businesses, our shops, basically everybody, to help promote Dungog as a place to visit. That's Dungog, Paterson, Vacy, Gresford, Clarence Town, and everywhere else across the Shire, because we are the centre of the universe, and people should be coming to visit and see what we have here and support our businesses in doing so.
