G'day, it's my pleasure to present this week's Council Connect. Digby Rayward here.
I thought I'd start by talking about the Council and its meetings. The Council meets on the third Wednesday of every month at 6pm. The meetings are live-streamed, and you can watch them later on Facebook or the website if you miss them. This allows you to see how discussions unfold and how decisions are made. Council functions somewhat like a board of directors; it sets policies and directions, while the General Manager (GM) is responsible for implementing what the Council aims to achieve. The organisational structure of the Council is designed, like any business, to deliver the most efficient and effective outcomes for ratepayers. This has been a focus of the new Council. I mentioned the stages we've gone through before. We've just completed stage two of the review, and it's going very well. We expect to have it finalised in the next month or so. We still have a few positions to fill. When these new starters get their minds around the job, you'll see a massive improvement. I'm seeing it already. And at Wednesday night's meeting, we approved stage three of the review, the Corporate and Customer Services review, and this will take place over the next few months. This is a great initiative driven by the General Manager and fully supported by the Councillors. This will make sure that this Council is operationally up to speed for business, and we're very confident about that.
We are very fortunate to have an active and engaged group of Councillors, and I'm very positive that we're moving in the right direction. I get the feeling, and people talk to me all the time, that we're going in the right direction. So that's a bit of background. That's how we operate, and hopefully we're delivering the stuff for you guys. We've got a good team and well keep building on that.
Okay, so a few items from Wednesday's meetings. For those who didn't follow it, I'll give a quick update. We're developing a different relationship with Hunter Water than we had in the past, focusing on a partnership. Our goal is to help provide good quality, clean drinking water. Their side involves taking the water, treating it, selling it, making a lot of money, and giving a dividend to the State Government. We're also discussing our arrangement, social license, and how they can support us. We had a very successful meeting with Jennifer Hayes, who's the Acting Chief Executive Officer for Hunter Water. If whoever fills that final position shares her outlook, it will be very productive for us. She covered several topics, and we certainly talked about social license, how they can assist with DA processing, and future steps.
They've also supported us with letters of support for that road from Dungog to Chichester Dam, which we keep talking about, that we need the funding for. So that's very good of them. They've also given us a letter of support for an individual agency to be responsible for monitoring and advising on the health of the. In the past, there was the Healthy Rivers Commission, which was disbanded by the government some years ago. It's hard to believe there is no agency involved with advising on the health of the rivers. Hunter Water's license is to extract water, but there's no agency involved with advising on the health of the rivers, and you see that across the news all the time about algae blooms and threats to rivers. So we will be working with that and lobbying the ministers for support on both those things. So thank you, Hunter Water, and especially Jennifer.
A couple of other things came out of the meeting. RV and caravan parking. This has been on the council agenda for quite some time, and we had an opportunity. We've been approached for some sites on Abbotts Flat that might be commercially available. So we've agreed to enter in negotiations with this Caravaning and RV group, and we'll report back to you on how we're going. That's a greenfield site. There are a few other options for Abbott's Flat. At the moment, it's leased out for cattle grazing, which it may still be when all the options come in, but we're definitely moving ahead on that one. And that will give visitors to the Shire another camping option.
And while I'm talking about camping options, the Dungog Showground Management Committee put up a fee proposal at the meeting for a visitation fee. Camping on the showground, there are currently 16 sites available, and the Management Committee is managing that very well. However, there are only 16 sites unless it's called an event. For example, during an event like the Rodeo, you can have multiple people camping on the site, and the fees collected will go to the Management Committee. This revenue can be reinvested into the showground. By charging an events fee, if someone has a musical festival or even Sculpture on the Farm, and ties it in with camping for a fee of, say, $200, if it's a community event, we'll be able to increase the number of camping sites available on the showground. This is a very good move by the Management Committee, supported by the General Manager and others. Well done on that! That leads to more camping on the site and leads to tourism.
The viewing platforms also came up at the Council meeting. This has been a long-standing legacy issue. When Dungog Regional Tourism was keen to do something, it got nowhere, but Councillor Carruthers put it on as a motion, well done Alexandria, and Council agreed to fund Moya Studios for a concept plan. We'll start with Bingleburra Road. We can only build it with funding from grants, but that'll be the first stage.
We've been flat out, as always, trying to get more money. The GM and I went to Sydney straight after the Council meeting last Wednesday night. On Thursday, we had a full day negotiating with parliamentarians. It was with the Hunter JO, which is our 10 councils, their Mayors and General Managers. So there were quite a few around the round table. And then we had seven ministers come in for half-hour sessions, along with a couple of local members. So we had nine altogether, and we were able to grab their attention and their offsiders for quite a while and negotiate on common interests like the financial sustainability of council roads. And I had the pleasure of introducing and leading the discussion with our Minister of Transport, who is, of course, our local member. I came out of that meeting a lot more positive than when I went in. So she certainly got the message, and it's supported by the other bigger Councils too, that Dungog needs more money. We'll be advocating on that again next week to Country Mayors, financial sustainability for small councils. So we're really trying to get some traction. We're putting in the big yards, but we want to see the dollars in the bank account, right? So we'll be at it and you can be sure we're giving it our best effort.
I guess that's about it. I'm very positive about the way this Council is going. It'll take another six months for some of these changes to bed in and for people to take ownership and responsibility for their jobs. And that's what drives the success of any business, and I look forward to being part of this, and the Councillors are also keen to drive it forward. Well, that's enough yapping on for me. I'll catch you next time and keep safe. Cheers
