Hello Dungog Shire. Councillor Liam Ley here, bringing you this week's Council video update.
This week has been dominated by the rain, with roads closed, and bridges and causeways flooded because of it. Council crews have been working very hard to assess the damage and reopen the roads and bridges as quickly as possible. Most of them are open now, but Council will be giving regular updates. If you want to follow that, jump on the Facebook page or the website, which is the best place. They do daily, if not multiple updates a day on there, so really check that out. I'll also just say, you know, we do have a large road network out here. We don't have that many crews. So if you are driving around and you do come across damage, please report it to Council. This really helps Council assess and get on top of the damage as quickly as possible.
One of the bigger events to happen was the Bingleburra landslip. Unfortunately, that's probably going to take quite a bit of time to clear. They continue to monitor that damage, and council teams are currently working with the geotechnical specialists to assess and reopen that road as quickly as possible. However, there will obviously be some delays there. But again, you can keep up to date with the Facebook page or the website.
While on the floods, if you were in town on Tuesday, you would have heard that Council was doing the annual test of the Flood Monitoring System. This was a siren that sounded throughout the town. This test is now complete. Safety checks are done, software updates and the system has been fully calibrated, so hopefully no more flood warning sirens will be heard for a while.
Now to our tree giveaway, which is still going on. As part of Local Government Week, the tree giveaway is back! It's still going strong. We've had a great response so far, but there's still quite a bit of stock available if you're interested. If you head down to the Dungog Council Administration building, there are still trees. The Clarence Town Post Office has limited stock, but there's still some there, and Riverdene Nursery in East Gresford also has some, which is open Friday, 9am to 3pm. It's capped at three trees per household. If you are a community group or school, you can claim up to 25, but you will need to get in contact with Council and chat to Tracy Lowrey about that, and you can organise a voucher through her.
So this weekend, rain, hail, or shine, Run Dungog will be on! It's Australia's biggest little trail running festival. It's on this Sunday, August 10. They've got a 40km, a 20km, a 10km, and a 5km running event, if you're interested. It's kicking off at 6am at the Dungog Common. The first run, I think, steps off at around 7am. And if you're not interested in doing the 40km run, there is also lots going on in the Common as part of this running festival. There will be coffee carts, and there'll be music. It's also a dog-friendly event, so make sure you bring your pooch along. And if the kids aren't too keen on running the 40 or 20 km with you, or even the 5 km, there will be a kids activity there, which Wild Craft Australia will host. They are hosting these outdoor kid adventure activities for kids aged 5-12 that will be fully supervised, so you can go and run the 40kms, and they can have a bit of fun too. So this will be a really big event, last year was absolutely massive! I know this year is gearing up to be really big as well. If you are interested, jump onto Google, type in Dungog run, it's the first website that comes up. All the information is there. Hopefully I'll see you there.
I guess also on the flood side of things. Last weekend, I met with some concerned community members about the Chichester Dam safety risk, emergency planning, and response. Community information sessions will be held shortly. It's during the week starting the 25th of August, although I don't have the exact date or time yet. But they will be at Bandon Grove, Dungog, and Clarence Town. So keep an eye out for the exact date and time. Council will put it on the Facebook page. These sessions will be hosted by the Local Emergency Management Committee, which includes Hunter Water, NSW Police, SES, and, of course, Council. So, if you have concerns, recommendations, or want to get an update on community information, keep an eye out for that. And I really do encourage any of you who have issues or concerns about the Chichester Dam, whether it be safety, emergency planning, flood modeling, or risk assessment, to come and voice those concerns. They will be there answering questions. It's a good opportunity for you to push those points you want to raise. So keep an eye on that, particularly if you're living downstream at Chichester Dam.
Also coming up, a Walking Tour and Community Workshop is planned as part of the Dungog Housing & Infrastructure Master Plan. This is to help shape the future of Dungog. So Dungog is growing, as we know, and it's really important that growth is done with the community and the council. We're all growing this together, and as part of that, we are inviting you to be part of that planning process. This next event is on Saturday, the 16 August, 9am to 12pm at the Doug Walters Pavilion here in Dungog. It starts with a guided walking tour where you'll walk around the local streets and parks, followed by a community design workshop. It's a really good way to get out, look at what's around the community, and then chat about it straight away. So together, hopefully by the end of the day, you'll be coming up with the future character statement for Dungog, as well as exploring all the ideas, reflecting on community values, and that will guide how and where we grow over the next 20 to 50 years. It's quite a long plan. If you do have kids, make sure you bring them along as well. Activity packs will be there for the kids, and it's a really good opportunity to get children involved in the planning. After all, they'll be the ones who will be here for 20 to 50 years. This is a really hands-on approach to doing things a little bit differently. We're not just relying on surveys. We want to maximize attendance. We want to look at unique ways of engaging and doing things. So I encourage you to come along, and hopefully we'll get some really good planning and good ideas out of it.
Lastly, you might have noticed, if you're in Dungog or surrounding areas, that we had some major internet issues over the last weekend and into the start of the week. I know I had a lot of people contacting me about calling Telstra and they were saying that there's nothing wrong. There obviously was something wrong, because the whole town had no internet connection. They ended up tracing it to some faulty equipment, and as a result, NBN has apologised and has accelerated equipment upgrades in the area to improve service and reliability for Dungog. That's going on right now. They're currently rolling out to fibre as well. I will say I'm not sponsored by Starlink at all, and I'm not getting any kickbacks here, and I definitely don't owe Elon Musk, but I will say I have Starlink, and I've never had a drop out. So if you are in those remote areas, I highly encourage you to look at Starlink. It's been absolutely amazing for me.
I think that's about it for this week. Again, hopefully I'll see you at the Run Dungog event on Sunday, but otherwise, have a good week and weekend. And if you see me around, come and chat. If you have any questions, reach out. I'm always Here. Thanks. Bye.
