$300,000 Secured to Fund Local Recovery Plan, More Than $1million Awarded to our Region

I am pleased to announce that our Shire has successfully secured $300,000 of Resilience NSW Bushfire Community Resilience & Recovery Funds to strengthen our ongoing efforts to support the delivery of community driven local recovery and resilience plans and actions.

It’s fantastic news for everybody in our community, because these funds will be invested to continue the great work projects funded by our Shire’s Get Ready, Get Together and Assist and Empower Grants are already delivering across our Shire’s villages.

I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate our local organsiations who were successful in securing funding for the following projects:

Bellingen based organisation OzGREEN, awarded $298K to expand their Resilient Communities Community Education Program to broaden their reach to our neighbouring local government areas of Coffs Harbour, Kempsey and Nambucca. Mid North Coast Joint Organisation, awarded $225K for the Simtable Project a tool to engage communities in localised place-based emergency information sessions. Bellingen Shire Council is one of three councils who will benefit from the outputs of this project. Arts Mid North Coast, awarded $184K for a Creative Recovery program including employing 3 officers and fund creative projects in our Shire. The Deer Vale Community Progress Association, awarded $174K for the Deer Vale Hall Resilience Project to update facilities in Deer Vale to provide a safe place during natural disasters.

The outcomes of these projects will strengthen our connections while increasing our skills and resources in our larger community to better respond to challenges and build our collective resilience.

The additional funds our Shire received will be used to work in partnership with our community and local community service providers to further the development of our Shires Community Resilience Network and develop our Shire’s own Local Recovery Plan.

Having our own Local Recovery Plan will provide our Shire with a strategic framework that will identify the broad range of severe weather, climate change and natural disaster events we experience, and how to best support and deliver local and ‘event specific’ recovery plans.

This community partnership-based model will also be informed by the recommendations made during a recent Deliberative Panel activity, which explored what community resilience means in our Shire and our community’s future resilience and recovery priorities.

Ultimately, it’s great to see both our community and neighbouring communities strengthening their capacity to manage community driven local recovery efforts and assures me we’ll meet the challenges we face now and into the future.

Bellingen Shire Mayor, Councillor Dominic King

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