Eurobodalla Shire Mayor Matt Hatcher has cautioned his colleagues against over-reacting to community feedback against the Batemans Bay Masterplan.
Councillors voted 5-3 in favour of a motion at yesterday’s Extraordinary Meeting to move ahead with updating the draft version that has been slammed in a probity report.
Councillor Hatcher told the meeting council must accept the criticisms and move forward with the plan.
“I think if you walked around Batemans Bay and asked the business owners, ever single one would want to see something in Batemans Bay,” he said.
“If you asked the wider community as we’ve done the overwhelming majority of people want to see things happening and change.
“254 submissions against something is quite low when you’re looking at a population of 40,000 plus people and 20,000 plus voters.
The Mayor also hit back at suggestions Batemans Bay in on the decline with more empty shops appearing.
“Hospitality venues in this area are constantly growing. I can guarantee you that. I have multiple businesses that are,” he said.
“Other business owners will tell you the same thing. There are always people that are doing it tough or struggling with businesses but if you look at the three main town centres shops are filling up or full.
“There’s lot of demand and there’s more demand coming.”
The motion to maintain the existing document was put up by Councillor Phil Constable. Councillor Constable told the chamber…staff must now address the recommendations that have been made.
“The probity report in no way supported abandoning the masterplan as it exists. Let’s be frank on that.” he said.
“It indicated a constructive process of moving its way forward and I believe what we have annunciated in this motion are logical steps in order to embrace the constructive criticism that has been put forward.”
The longest serving councillor Rob Pollack described the development of the draft Batemans Bay Masterplan as “one of the poorest examples of an exercise he has ever been associated with.”
“The work that has been done is exceedingly deficient so it needs a total re-work and re-look at it and luckily there’s a majority of councillors who feel a need that the inadequacy needs to be addressed,” he said.
“There wasn’t sufficient dialogue between the public. There wasn’t sufficient dialogue between senior council management at the time and councillors.
“There was a very gung-ho attitude to develop that we know what’s best or this is what we’re putting out.”
