Council
25 October, 2024
C’mite looks back on year that was
CORANGAMITE Shire councillors took the opportunity to look back on council’s work over the past year at a Special Meeting of Council on Tuesday.
The meeting was for councillors to consider the Corangamite Shire Annual Report 2023-2024 for public viewing.
Councillors also took the opportunity to reflect on the highlights and challenges council has faced throughout the year, with Cr Laurie Hickey saying he had a “great pleasure” receiving the report.
“It certainly has been a very busy year – it feels a little bit like muck-up day because it’s the last sitting of this particular council, and it has been one of a lot of learning,” he said.
“If you download the annual report, you’ll realise there were 16,115 residents in the shire with an average age of 48 - you’ll realise that there’s 44,000 square kilometres in the shire, and there are 12 towns.
“It’s all written in the report – it’s wonderful information to be able to find out.
“It’s a very good report and it’s certainly one we should download or grab a hard copy of and have a read. There’s a lot in it.”
Cr Geraldine Conheady said she wished to extend her gratitude to the Corangamite Shire staff, committee members, volunteers and community partners for their part in completing a variety of projects this year.
“We really appreciate it very much, and I’m proud of this organisation and proud of all the personnel within it and I really appreciate their dedication and work that they do to help us do our job to serve the community,” she said.
“That’s probably the most important thing to me about the consideration of this annual report - I do think we did actually achieve our mission and I think we upheld our values.
“I’d recommend reading the report because you’ll read about the mission and the values that we had within the report, apart from the other detailed information in there.
“I felt that we did well with our annual action plan – there were 58 actions, and 88 per cent of those actions were completed.
“I believe, in addition to that, there were carried forward actions from the previous year.”
Highlights in the 2023-2024 annual report included investing $7.55 million into renewing local roads, rolling out the new kerbside purple glass bins to 5597 properties, and delivering the inaugural Light Up Camperdown festival.
“We’ve managed to implement some very progressive and enabling projects that also address need, and I would suggest unlocking housing in Simpson and Timboon are very good examples of that,” Cr Conheady said.
“We know that housing is sorely needed – the Timboon and Simpson projects are something that we haven’t done before as far as I’m aware, but that’ll be an amazing outcome for the Corangamite community and I’m really excited about how they’re progressing and the benefit they’ll bring to the Corangamite community.
“We’ve also done a lot of work, as another example, encouraging investment in the Camperdown Production Precinct which I think is going to be of amazing benefit to the Corangamite community – just attracting that investment, creating that opportunity for growth.
“We support arts and culture – we’re looking forward now to the brand-new Graze the Day event that’s coming up in Timboon.”
Corangamite Shire Council has also faced a number of challenges this year including Regional Livestock Exchange ceasing operations at the Camperdown Saleyards and the closure of Terang’s May Noonan Residential Aged Care facility.
“There’s never a year without challenges – that’s part of everyday life,” Cr Conheady said.
“We can have our goals, but it’s pretty hard to meet them 100 per cent.
“The competing land use is quite a big issue for us at the moment, and we’re working to get better planning controls around that – proper controls that are stronger to help address that issue.
“Roads, cost of living, cost shifting – all of that has seen some challenges, but that’s just part of the work that we need to do to try and manage those challenges.”
To view the annual report in full, visit www.corangamite.vic.gov.au/Council/Publications/Annual-Report, or request a hard copy at the Civic Centre at 181 Manifold Street, Camperdown.
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