Cr Danny Claridge met with the group at our session on 7 October 2022 to discuss changes to the Climate Change Adaptation Plan and Environment Plan.
Key points he made were:
A number of other issues were raised in a Q&A session. These included;
John Lane
Key points he made were:
- Both policies under review at present along with the City Community Plan
- He expects the reviews will result in effectively new plans, rather than just updates
- Staff will be preparing drafts with these going to council before public release for general public review/comment
- Public submissions will be considered by council along with any changes to the draft.
- Finalised draft will then be adopted by council
- Danny is looking for initial ideas on how to make these plans better documents with relevant policies/action
- He suggested we could contact the council staff doing the work (Bronwyn Chapman and Nathan ?) to put ideas forward while the plans are in their formative stages of preparation
A number of other issues were raised in a Q&A session. These included;
- Danny was negative to the idea of council sponsoring a community power hub. He thinks there may be technical issues with the network that would mitigate against it.
- But he indicated that council is part of Municipal Association of Victoria’s bulk power purchase scheme (available only for council’s own power purchases)
- Council can only encourage sustainable subdivision design as there are no state planning controls requiring developers to apply sustainability criteria when designing their subdivisions
- Danny advised that the new local government act requires councils to adopt circular economy principles
- Council considering a tip shop and repair cafe at the new waste transfer station
- Council feels it has limited capacity/expertise fully enforce the state vegetation clearing regulations but will investigate if clearing actions are brought to their notice. He mentioned a number of exemptions in these regulations relating to regrowth and planted vegetation make compliance difficult
John Lane
