It's Digby Rayward here. It's my pleasure to chat with you for this week, there's been a lot happening, so I'll run through as much as I can, as quickly as I can.
So look Pedalfest. What would we do without our volunteers and, our community getting behind events. So congratulations to Rotary for staging Pedalfest. It's great to see cyclists coming into Dungog, and I was lucky enough to catch up with a guy at the coffee shop who had just done the Fosterton loop and he was an outside visitor, of course, and had a great time. So well done to Rotary and congratulations.
The Newcastle International Airport opening was an interesting event. Gareth, the General Manager, and I were invited along. It was certainly a fancy affair with plenty of speeches celebrating this event. The International Airport provide some opportunities for us and the whole region. But for Dungog, I think the opportunity is there for tourism, if we can get the right people to get their minds around the possibilities of tourists coming into Williamtown and then hooking into the Barrington tops. There's so much available in Dungog along the way. And then the other part of the international opportunity is exports. And perhaps there's some agricultural stuff we could look at there, like maybe avocados. I'm sure there's something we can think about, and certainly the exports don't even have to be agricultural. Opportunities have to be identified. So all we know is that the opportunity is there for us, and we just have to have our eyes open and see what opportunities are there. If the council can help facilitate any of those business opportunities, we'll do what we can. So we'll see how that one develops.
Now, Hunter Water has a major part to play in Dungog, and certainly recently, the GM, the planning staff and I met with the CEO of Hunter Water, Darren Cleary, and Declan Clausen, and we needed to discuss the effect Hunter water has on our Housing and Infrastructure Master Plan, because Hunter Water is a key player in the size of our blocks, non sewer blocks, and the minimum size is 8000 square meters. 4000 square meters of this goes to looking after the sewer water. That transpiration area, we would argue, can be reduced, and we're certainly negotiating with Hunter Water about that, and also the anomalies that we've identified in the Hunter Water Act and the Water New South Wales Act. So there's a lot of work to do there. In principle, they have agreed to take on our proposals, and we will get back to them now that Darren Cleary has moved on to Sydney Water, there'll be a new CEO. So we'll take these discussions further, but we need to work quickly, as we pointed out to them.
And I'm also looking to meet with a the new Chair of the Hunter Water Board just now announced, and discuss with her all things Dungog including, in my opinion, the obvious lack of social license that Hunter Water has shown to Dungog Shire over many years, a point that I've just started to raise with Darren Cleary, and will continue to make. There is a complete disconnect between where resources come from and where financial benefits flow. You know, Hunter Water made a dividend of about $50 million last year to the State government, and we receive no recognition whatsoever for our role in that. That's something I think we will continue to work on diligently.
Now, the Housing and Infrastructure Master Plan. Well, you've heard us bang on about this for a long time, right? And there's a whole lot of umbrella plans that sit under that main structure including the Rural Land Strategy, Infrastructure Plan. And we have to find from about 2400 new housing positions in this Shire. And the big discussion is, well, where do we put them? And the first point is we're on a very tight timeframe for this. We've had great community involvement in coming to all the meetings. I've probably been to 90% of the meetings, and it's great to see the engagement. So, three drafts have come out, including the Dungog Local Housing Strategy, the Rural Lands Strategy and the Dungog Structural Plan. Now these are not small documents and Councillors have been having a look at them, at the drafts. And within the next week or so, our comments will be taken on board, and then they'll go out to the community as a draft. And so we'll be looking at your feedback, so watch this space.
But a special congratulations to one of our Councillors, Fred Patton. Fred is a speed reader, and his attention to detail is absolutely amazing. And if you can see the size of these documents and Fred, well, all I can say is well done, Fred, you're doing a great job. So watch this space. Once the documents are on public exhibition, you will be able to press on your own property and see what changes may be affected you, or may not affect you. So anyway, it's a lot of work being done, and it's taking everyone a lot of time, but in the end, it'll be a great outcome.
Clarencetown Bridge, well, you just have to drive past it, and you see the fantastic work that's been done. It's progressing very well. It's on budget, the hard rock continues to be a challenge, but eventually that'll be all good. You need to be aware too that coming into Durham Street in the next fortnight or so, there'll start to be some roadwork there. So please be patient. We'll keep going and we'll see a great outcome at the end.
I was also involved with the Dungog High School year 12 graduation last week, and it was my pleasure to attend. The students, teachers and the principal Kylie Lake are doing a great job up there. And there was some outstanding achievements for those kids, it was very impressive. So well done to you all.
Council changes. Well last week, we saw the departure of Trevor, the Director of Planning and Environment. Trevor has done a great job for us, but he got a great position at Maitland Council at a very senior position. So we congratulate him and wish him all the best down there. He's done a great job in starting to get our planning people pushed in the right direction. We had a long way to go, and he's done a great job in getting that up. So now we're recruiting for a new person to fill the position. So let's hope we get plenty of good, strong candidates, and we'll know over the next couple of weeks how that's going. I'll be fortunate enough to be on that selection panel, so if anything goes wrong, I will deserve a kick in the backside! So the other thing that Council has agreed to is a review, an organisational and restructuring review advised by our General Manager and the new Director of Infrastructure and Assets Damien Morris. This will be phased in over the next few months, and we look forward to seeing these changes implemented. A well used quote of mine from the former CEO of Westpac bank, Gail Kelly, said that a successful organisation must have the bus going in the right direction, and reviews are necessary to check our direction, and I think this will be great.
I've often said that we seem to be dealing with legacy issues. Well, we no longer want to be dealing with legacy issues. We want to be either dealing with the here and now or the future planning. So I'm looking forward to the outcome of that, as all Councillors are 100% supportive of this one.
Also indicated last week that we now have a new Deputy Mayor. Congratulations Liam. I'm certainly look forward to working with him. And, I'm sure we'll continue the good work that I was fortunate to have completed with Alexandria as the previous Deputy Mayor. She still is Deputy Mayor for a couple more weeks till Liam takes over. So congratulations to Alexandria. She did a great job with it while she was in position and certainly put the energy and time in. It's not easy when you're trying to fulfill all the commitments that get thrown at us.
And finally, the Regional Academy of Sports. The General Manager and I met with the representatives with what used to be called the old Hunter Academy of Sport. We met with them yesterday, and they told us where their new organisational structure was up to. Council supported them in the past willingly, because we believe that sport, especially for young people, but also for old, is absolutely critical for a whole lot of issues like mental health. And what they offer, I think, is those young kids that want to go on and do a lot better, the capabilities that they have got. The Academy of Sport, you know, shows that pathway. And so wherever we can do to help, we certainly will continue to help,
Anyway, that's enough from me yapping on! Have a good long weekend, and I'll catch you next time. Cheers.
