A community meeting in Bermagui on Monday evening attracted an enthusiastic crowd of more than 100 local residents who decided to set up a new Bermagui Community Forum.
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The forum’s role will be to hold open public meetings on a range of major social, planning and infrastructure issues facing Bermagui and surrounding areas, hopefully to reach a community consensus and to represent these views impartially to council and other relevant government and non-government bodies.
Bruce Leaver, chairman of Sapphire Coast Tourism, was the independent chair of the meeting. He highlighted the importance of communities providing government bodies with an agreed position on major developments and issues to attract funding and achieve solutions for community problems.
The meeting recognised it may not be possible to reach a consensus on all issues. However, 23 similar community forums have operated successfully across Shoalhaven Shire for more than a decade.
The newly established Bermagui Community Forum also set up a management committee to organise these public meetings and to present agreed community views to council and other relevant organisations. Residents who volunteered to join this new committee include Narelle Myers, Fergus McWhirter, Yolanda del Valle-Buetefuer, Debra Cushion, David Munro, Geoff Steel, Frances Perkins and Bill Southwood. The management committee also is seeking members from Bermagui’s sporting clubs and the indigenous community.
Ludo McFerran addressed the forum on the lack of affordable accommodation in the Bega Valley Shire, including for older residents, and some possible solutions.
The meeting identified several major issues it felt the new Bermagui Community Forum should address. These included inadequate affordable housing and retirement housing, clean energy including solar energy options for the Bermagui area, the stalled Bermagui Master Plan, indigenous community issues, better recycling of waste in Bermagui, protection of the Great Southern Forests, inadequate community leisure infrastructure including playgrounds, picnic areas, pathways and bike paths, the high accident rate on the Cobargo-Bermagui road and the need for improved community information sharing on new infrastructure developments.
The management committee is tasked with prioritising these issues, establishing working committees where appropriate and organising future forum meetings on these issues.