The South Gippsland Shire is seriously lagging its neighbours. The outcome of this is fewer jobs and less income for the businesses in this Shire. It also means there is less population and hence less investment in our health services.
Letter to Editor – Growth Why is South Gippsland Shire Lagging its Neighbours?
The South Gippsland Shire is seriously lagging its neighbours. The outcome of this is fewer jobs and less income for the businesses in this Shire. It also means there is less population and hence less investment in our health services. We miss out on 24/7 staffed police stations. We also have less investment in aged care services. The aged care facilities at our main towns – Leongatha and Korumburra are more than 50 years old and do not meet the space standards for the care they need to provide.
I have listed the data (which covers the last 12 months) taken from the My Victoria website which clearly shows our problem.
Bass Coast-1243 $226.2 M,
Baw Baw-1347 $280.4 M,
Latrobe City-1154 $258.9 M,
Wellington-904-$151.7 M,
South Gippsland-657 $102.3M
The South Gippsland Action Group (SGAG) have been pushing Council for around 18 months to adopt a pro-development approach. The previous Council was receptive to this approach but the new Administrators seem to like putting off decisions. Instead of action we now have 2 new Advisory Committees on Economic Growth and Tourism which will allow them to defer any action for at least another 12 months. We already had a 2018 “Economic Growth and Tourism Strategy”. Why not use that?
We are now in a holding pattern while the Shire develops a “Community Vision” and re-writes the “Community Engagement Policy”. In the mean-time the work on the planning scheme which is needed to allow for growth is not being done. Our Coastal Development Strategy and a review of the Housing and Settlement policy to enable growth are forgotten.
Taking the figures above we can see our Shire should be able to get an extra $100 M in development happening. That would be a welcome boost for our economy and translate to between 500 and 1000 extra local jobs. This growth can be spread over the Shire but particularly around our coastal region. The growth can also help drive fixes for other problems like a water supply to Yanakie and a path from Foster to the Prom. Please Administrators – show some urgency for our Shire!
Lindsay Love
Sec, SGAG
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