Emma Pritchard
Community organisations including Grafton Headspace, Ulmarra SES, the New School of Arts, the Grafton Hockey Centre and the Grafton CWA branch will have their facilities upgraded after Federal Member for Page Kevin Hogan announced $2.1 million in funding for local projects provided through the Federal Government’s Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Grants Program last week.
Upgrades will include roof infrastructure, increased storage and access improvements, air flow and temperature enhancements, and general building modifications to improve usefulness and serviceability of nominated locations.
Speaking to a small gathering including representatives from Clarence Valley Council (CVC) and community groups outside the Grafton Headspace premises in Duke Street on February 25, Mr Hogan acknowledged our local councillors and thanked them for nominating the projects and how the funding would be distributed.
“$1.8 million has been allocated to upgrade community facilities that provided emergency resources and health support services during the Black Summer Bushfires in 2019,” Mr Hogan said.
“This funding is a great way of helping these facilities to continue to grow and continue the work they do in the community.
“It’s great they’ve been recognised.”
The funding will enable the New School of Arts to get a new roof while the Grafton CWA will use the money to help improve their disability toilet access.
Speaking with the Clarence Valley Independent following the announcement, Manager of Grafton Headspace Dan Griffin said the funding will allow them to create a youth focused space within their headquarters.
“The headspace building is an amazing building, possibly one of the biggest in the country, but it’s not quite perfect for our clients,” he said, revealing the interior is “a bit too open” in places and requires structural improvements.
“Our team are very dedicated and we’re growing, we have a strong focus on our young people, we want to offer more services throughout the Clarence Valley, and this is the first step in allowing us to do that.”
Along with several community projects, council has allocated $131000 to purchase agricultural drones to deliver weed spray to inaccessible areas, assisting with the eradication of invasive weeds that have been identified as a major threat.
Left unmanaged, noxious weeds can become bushfire fuel load.
Mr Hogan said Council will use $108625 to undertake strategic mapping through Nearmap, a leading aerial imagery and geospatial technology provider to allow for strategic planning, compliance, and also prediction of vulnerabilities to Council’s land, roads and infrastructure, the environment.