2020-02-11 Planning & Environment Committee Agenda

PLANNING & ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                11 FEBRUARY 2020


The same assessor from each of three groups assessed all 10 applications to ensure consistency
of scoring. The Council employee outside of the Environment Services team was from Strategic
Planning and an independent paid ecological consultant was appointed as the external assessor.
It was especially useful to get qualified independent assessment from outside of Noosa, by
someone who has no knowledge of the applicants of the projects, but a high level of expertise in
environmental management.
All three assessors came up with similar results and a moderation meeting was held to develop a
final order of merit, which was unanimously agreed upon.
The table below identifies the recommended funding, with a total funding of:
    2019-2020      $259,338
    2020-2021      $259,959
    2021-2022      $261,354
This represents a small increase on the $250,000 generally allocated to the MEC Grants, out of
the total pool of $375,000 funding for the Environment Grants Program. In the absence of any
increase in funding being made available over the following two years, it is anticipated that a small
reduction in the funding allocated to Environment Project Grants (currently at $75,000 per year)
will offset this. For the 2019/20 financial year, there is already an underspend in the Environment
Project Grants to allow for the extra funding to the MEC Grants.




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