Visionary State Government Plan for Coffs Harbour (9 April 2021)

Planning for the future is a crucial part of the work of a local council and it was great to see so much of that work come together so beautifully in the recently unveiled Coffs Harbour Regional City Action Plan.

As well as incorporating Council’s key growth and community development opportunities and strategies to take our city forward as an attractive, innovative and dynamic place to live, work and play, the Plan also recognises that the city centre is critical to Coffs Harbour’s success as a regional city.

The Plan features the city centre heavily as a community gathering place offering arts and culture and a place that will host a significant share of the city’s jobs and businesses, as well as opportunities for learning and collaborating and professional and civic services for the larger regional catchment.

I’d say the State Government really gets how it will work and why we see it as so important.

Critical to the success of the Plan are the various Collaboration Opportunities listed with state agencies and others.

And the very first ‘Collaboration Opportunity’ states that Council, with advice from stakeholders, will cluster major arts and cultural infrastructure in the city centre to bring life to the city and make better use of public transport, taxi services, parking and ancillary services like cafes and restaurants.

Interestingly, when the draft version of the Plan was released it became clear that arts, culture and the creative industries were missing. Locals working in these sectors immediately pulled together and made it clear in submissions that the hugely vibrant – and growing – creative industries sector needed to be included as a community priority.

It’s good to see the State Government was listening.

I’m a great believer in working together to achieve results and I’m looking forward to collaborating further with the NSW Government and other key figures to see the Plan come to life and for Coffs Harbour to become the best city on the North Coast.

Qantas Offering Even More Choice

Qantas has now launched its direct flights to Coffs Harbour from Melbourne – and increased the size of its aircraft on one of the daily Sydney service.

This major capacity boost on its new planned services for Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane will deliver around 2,600 additional seats every week once fully operational, or 135,000 seats a year. Coupled with Rex’s new Sydney services, this means that we will see potentially around 210,000 extra passengers travelling through Coffs Harbour Airport.