Hello everyone. Councillor Liam Ley here giving you this week's video update.
Road repairs are still continuing after the recent flood events. Just a quick note: If you are driving around and you happen to drive across anything, make sure that you report it to Council. Hopefully, they can get on to it as quickly as possible. But please be patient. There is a little bit of a backlog there. Hopefully, they get on top of that pretty quickly.
Dungog Shire is really forging ahead now. Council is rolling out an ambitious set of strategic plans that will shape our region's growth and future. This is backed by a large federal grant the council was successful in getting. So this shows that the federal government sees Dungog as a potential area for growth and investment. It's really promising to see. So Council will be delivering a new Local Strategic Planning Statement, a Local Housing Strategy, a Rural Land Strategy, an Infrastructure Capacity and Prioritisation Plan and a Structure Plan for Dungog. So there's a lot on the move, there's a lot of growth, there's a lot of potential, and this is a real turning point for Dungog. And for a Council of this size to be delivering this amount of strategic plans is really big! It's a really big task for them, and it's great to see that they're forging ahead with it and really grabbing this and leading Dungog into this direction.
As part of this process, we really do need community feedback, and this is to make sure that it aligns with community expectations. So over the next six to nine months, you'll see a lot of calls for community engagement. I really encourage everyone to get involved in that. The Housing and Infrastructure Master Plan is a long term strategy to ensure growth is well planned, sustainable, and is true to the charm that is Dungog Shire. The Master Plan will help shape how we approach housing, infrastructure and development over the next 20 to 50 years.
It's really important that the community engage in shaping this plan. The community engagement phase will commence soon, from the end of June, and there'll be a number of pop-up info sessions available that Council will announce on their Facebook page and website. There will be opportunity for you to engage online as well. You can register your interest on the website, but just keep an eye out on the Facebook page for further updates on that. But it's really important that we get as much community engagement across the next six to seven months as possible.
So moving on to the library roof repair. There's a new roof being installed on the library next week. The works are planned to take place Tuesday and Wednesday. For everyone's safety, the library will be closed during this time. And hopefully, if the weather's good and the rain stays off, which looks like it is going to, they'll be reopening Thursday from 10am.
There's also some phone maintenance happening at Council. From Wednesday afternoon, from 2pm, Council's Administration and Depot phone lines will be down due to maintenance. So if you do need to get in contact during these times, you can always email, or you can always just pop down and talk to someone in person, and phones will be up and running again Thursday, normal business hours.
And lastly, the Clarence Town Bridge, you will have noticed, is well and truly on the move now. The bridge project is about to enter the next phase of work, and that's set to commence next week. So you'll see a lot more activity as earthworks begin. I mean, there already is a lot of earthworks, and if you drive along that road like I do every day, you'll see that things are really starting to ramp up there. There will be more truck movements around the area. There's going to be more traffic flow and traffic control in place, and some increased noise as things ramp up. You can stay across that project on Council's website and Facebook page. Or if you are like me and you drive across it every day, you'll stay across it.
I think that's about it. So have a good long weekend. Just a reminder that the Barrington National Park is unfortunately still closed. But the good news is the Common is very much open, and it's the perfect time to get out and start practicing for the upcoming Run Dungog event which is in August. I'll be out there on the trails. You can register now, it is open online, for Run Dungog, and hopefully I'll see you all there.
But anyway, have a good long weekend. Thank you very much. Bye.
