Mayor Pontin advises that she is in the process of meeting with all chambers of commerce and like organisations throughout the council area and for her, economic development is a priority.

Localised strategic planning, which has occurred in the past, has now been abandoned and being replaced, as it was time consuming and often did not result in any action. "Place Statements" will be developed instead.

Also a single Local Environment Plan (LEP) for all of Mid Coast is being developed, replacing the three LEPs inherited by council. This will not be a one size fits all approach.

A Hunter Regional Plan is being developed which is a one size fits all approach with the Pacific Highway being the boundary with major infrastructure development to the east. The intent is that no-one living in this zone will be more that 15 minutes from services.

Council spends about $100m on roads and footpaths each year and from a budget of $300m, only $88m is raised from rates. Additional revenue is sourced from other areas, including state and federal governments.

Mayor Pontin also explained the relationship between councillors and council staff and explained some of the organisational structure of council.

Members of the BCA were able to advise Mayor Pontin that as a group, it is not anti-council and is keen to work with council on projects for the delta towns to enhance tourism, economic development and improvement of amenity for residents.

In last week's edition of the Manning River Times, Taree Old Bar Surf Life Saving Club announced a project that would provide more defibrillators in Old Bar at readily accessible locations.

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For some time in the very recent past, a small informal group operated as Resilience Old Bar. One of the issues identified by this group was the lack of awareness of the location of existing defibrillators in the Old Bar and Manning Point areas.

Only a relatively small amount of research revealed that there existed some 15 defibrillators in the area at 13 different locations. Although you can make a general search using your mobile phone or download apps specifically for this purpose, the experience was that this method was far from comprehensive and usually resulted in only one brand of device being identified.

The group wrote to the Commissioner, Resilience NSW, suggesting that a more comprehensive identification system be coordinated either through that office or preferably at a national level.

The list that was prepared by Resilience Old Bar has been forwarded to the organisers of the surf club project.

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