Hello and welcome to this week's Council Connect. Councillor Alexandria Carruthers here to bring you a quick update, and then I'll let you get back on with your Friday.
I'm just going to touch on a couple of things we covered off at Wednesday night's Council meeting. Number one being the submission to the NSW Government on the Roads Act of 1993 Options Paper. So that review is an important step towards creating a fairer, clearer, and more efficient road management system for our communities, particularly ones like ours. Right now, we're responsible for maintaining roads that serve major state and regional purposes, such as state infrastructure, namely the Chichester Dam and Lostock Dam, which are both positioned at the back of the Shire. So when you think about how those state infrastructures are being accessed for maintenance and everything else that goes on there, they need to drive on our roads. So we think it's only fair that we have a state road to do that. So that formed a major part of the submission that we put towards that options paper.
So we'll be supporting the plan-led framework as a pathway forward, and I'll include some more information in the comments below on what that means. It sort of goes into the nitty-gritty. If I talk about it here, this video will be way too long. But essentially, what we want is clarity, partnership, and sustainable funding for roads. So that covers that off.
The second item on the agenda was the Sponsorship Policy. At last month's council meeting, I moved an amendment to a motion to look at developing a Sponsorship Policy. That policy is now being created, and the council endorsed it to go on public exhibition, so it'll be up for 28 days. I'll include a link in the comments below so you can access that as well, but that's to provide a clear, transparent, and accountable framework for how sponsorship decisions are made. It's a policy that's designed to serve our community. So we really need your input on that policy and how it looks. Essentially, what the process will be for approaching Council to ask for sponsorship. At the moment, we've got an ad hoc sponsorship system that doesn't have a formal policy to support it. That was one of the major reasons for getting a bit more governance and structure around what we're doing in that space.
So they were the two major things that came out of Wednesday's meeting. We'll also include the minutes in the comments below, so you can catch up on all the other bits and pieces that we go through. The regular items, such as planning and development, are in there too, so you can keep track of how that's all going. We're seeing a lot of progress in those older DAs that have been sitting in the system for a long time, and we're seeing that list starting to get smaller and smaller, which is fantastic. So well done to all those who have those DAs in the system that have been taking some time, but also to our planning staff and team.
So that wraps up this week's Council Connect. Just a quick plug for the St Mary-on-Allyn. They've got the Barbarians playing there on the weekend. That's a chamber orchestra in St. Mary Church there. So that'll be quite an impressive event when you think about the acoustics in those old churches with a chamber orchestra. I believe there are still some tickets floating around online. I'll also include details in the comments below, just in case that interests you. But have a great Friday, and we'll catch you next week. See you. Bye.
