According to Edward River Council, the district’s population is going to skyrocket to almost 20,000 over the next 26 years.
But Mayor Peta Betts is refusing to answer questions on how this is going to be achieved.
Council has a new Growth Strategy, at a cost of $200,000 to ratepayers, but will not answer basic questions on how it plans to reach the lofty goal.
In fact, we believe Cr Betts has actively discouraged councillors from answering questions on the strategy.
Census data indicates there have been some minor increases and minor decreases in the local population over the past 20 years, with an overall decline during census periods from 2006 to 2021.
The Pastoral Times was aware that community members had concerns about how Edward River Council could possibly expect to turn this long term trend into a massive growth spurt, and if so how it was going to be delivered.
We asked the Mayor and councillors a number of questions, including:
Do you personally think this population increase is achievable within the timeframe?
What do you see as the role(s) of the council in achieving this increase?
What do you see as the role(s) of the community in achieving this?
What do you see as the main impediments to the goal being achieved and in what way?
Can these impediments be overcome? If yes, how? If not, why?
Unfortunately, it appears Mayor Betts does not believe local residents deserve an answer to the questions.
It seems she also did not want other councillors to make comment, as we believe they were advised that any comment should come from the Mayor. Not surprisingly, she did not respond to the questions.
Cr Shirlee Burge upheld her democratic right to make a public comment, and agreed with general feedback received at the Pastoral Times that the strategy should have a more conservative population goal.
Council has established an Edward River Growth Strategy Project Advisory Committee, which includes Crs Harold Clapham and Shannon Sampson, with community members Julia Druitt, Ben Littman, Dominic Kelly, Jarryd Lowry and Edwina Hayes.
Cr Burge says the committee “is filled with youth and energy and I know we will see fantastic developments with them at the helm”, and believes it is “important to highlight that any growth goal cannot be pursued and achieved by council alone”.
Former mayor and local real estate agent Ashley Hall, like many local business people agrees that we should have long term goals and visions, “but in my opinion we have to be more realistic”.
There have been suggestions that this more realistic goal should be a population of about 13,000.
The Pastoral Times also supports long term goals and visions and encourages community discussion to ensure the best possible chance of achieving any targets that are set.
This will not occur when we have a mayor who is not prepared to get involved in the debate.
Council is encouraging residents to complete a Growth Strategy survey, which can be accessed via a link on the ERC website.
The strategy is described as “a blueprint that sets out our region’s competitive advantage and economic opportunities, and will direct residential, commercial and industrial expansion in a sustainable and strategic way. We’ve heard from you, our community, that we need to grow to prosper. This strategy will provide our council with a clear vision for growth”.