2015-08-18 Planning and Organisation Committee Agenda

PLANNING & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                              18 AUGUST 2015


   Council’s website is still a work in progress. A decision was made late in 2014 not to
     establish a completely new website but to re-focus the existing website. While some
     work has been done in that regard and the website is mobile enabled, the structure
     and presentation of information is still not particularly user friendly. The online
     services component (including online payments) is enabled but while usage is
     growing, it is still relatively low as a percentage of overall transactions.
   Council’s social media presence significantly improved in the 2014/15 year. Council’s
     Facebook followers have increased to nearly 2,500 and this medium has been
     particularly useful during our minor flooding events. The Noosa Library Service and
     The J also have developed strong social media presences which assist in the
     promotion of their services.
   Council has been very active in liaising with various community organisations across
     the Shire. Regular meetings are held by Councillors and senior staff with a variety of
     community based organisations including CCIQ (Noosa and Cooroy), Noosa Junction
     Association, Noosa and District Landcare, Noosa Waters Association, Hastings Street
     Association, Noosa Residents and Ratepayers Association etc.
   Consultation with the community on a range of issues took place throughout the year.
     While too numerous to list all of these, some examples include:
     o     consultation on changing the names of streets – e.g. Sunshine Beach Road
     o     consultation on proposed amendments to the Noosa Plan
     o    consultation on proposed new Local Laws
     o    future of Cooroy Butter Factory
     The Your Say Noosa portal on our website became fully operational.

Corporate Plan Priority 4 – Focus on community assets
The Council’s focus will be on maintaining and renewing existing assets rather than building
new assets. In the short term, there will be a strong focus on undertaking condition
assessment and developing long term asset management plans.

Key achievements include:
   The rollout of the 2014/15 Capital Works Program took longer to establish than
     planned. There were initial delays in finalising detailed designs after the capital
     program was adopted as part of the 2014/15 budget. This was probably not
     unexpected given that we were only 6 months old at the time with no historic designs /
     plans available but it did take some time to gather traction in the delivery of the
     2014/15 Capital Works Program. By year end, there were two major projects not
     commenced and another which had commenced but not been finalised:
     o    Rifle Street, Pomona flood works which is programmed for the latter half of the
          2015 calendar year;
     o    Munna Pont bridge remediation which had a tender awarded in July 2015; and
     o    Finalisation of the re-seal program.
     By year end, when taking into account completed capital works and committals, the
     Capital Works Program was 68% complete or, if the three major projects outlined
     above are excluded as they are carried forward into 2015/16, then the completion rate
     was 82%.
   Some of the significant Capital Works projects achieved in 2014/15 included:
     o    reseal of Walter Hay Drive;
     o    work on the Daintree Estate, Tewantin flood mitigation project (substantially
          underway);


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