From the Newsroom

Steering committee formed for Yamba community group

Rodney Stevens

A steering committee was formed as the new ‘community’ group met on Saturday to begin a new era of information and action for residents of Yamba. 

The group held its first meeting following a unanimous vote to form a ‘residents’ group’ at a community meeting held earlier this month.

After local resident, Helen Tyas Tunggal spoke about the council’s proposed sale of the Wooli Street Hall to the 50 plus concerned residents who attended, Trish Bowes chaired the meeting.

A steering committee of eight locals was chosen, Ms Bowes said, who will meet this Friday to finalise some details about the group.

The steering committee members are James Lamerton, Leon Ankersmit, Alex Devantier, Rob Mylchreest, Lynne Cairns, Col Shephard, Lyn Deacon and Trish Bowes.

Ms Bowes said the group spent some time discussing appropriate names for the new organisation.

She said some of the names suggested were the Yamba Community Action Group and the Yamba Community Advocacy Group.

“It is being decided this Friday as there was a motion put forward that the steering committee actually decide on the name.

“Originally it was ‘Yamba Residents Association’ but it was raised that it should be community instead of residents, because we are trying to represent as broader interests as we can. 

“We are going to meet this Friday and work out the name of the group, the aims and actions of the group and then have another public meeting so people can attend and be informed on what its all about.”

Once the group’s name is determined, Ms Bowes said the community will get to elect the executive committee.

“There needs to be a chairperson, secretary, a treasurer and roles like that, so it was decided that those positions would be decided by the community,” she said.

Despite council listing development applications on its website, Ms Bowes said a common theme from a number of attendees was ‘they feel like they’re not informed’.

“A big thing that came up is that people need to be informed about what is in the best interests of Yamba,” she said.

“They don’t know what’s going on in the community and what DA’s are coming up.

“We’ve got a lot of retired people here and some of them are not computer savvy, there have been people who didn’t know how to do submissions to council and there seems to be a real lack of education about what you can do.

“So, we want everyone to help each other and to share the knowledge, don’t sit on that knowledge, people need to know what’s going on.”

A key issue the community group will focus on is the overdevelopment of Yamba and stopping the fill that is being brought in, Ms Bowes said.

“Someone said we don’t want to be a second Byron Bay and I said I’m not worried about being a second Byron Bay, I’m worried about becoming a second Woodburn or Lismore with all that fill that is being brought in to Yamba,” Ms Bowes said.

“The water has to go somewhere when there has been so much development on floodplains.”

Ms Bowes said the group hopes to unite, inform and empower the Yamba community about issues of concern locally.

“Because it’s such a diverse community you are not all going to have the same agreement, and everyone agreed with that,” she said.

“We want to try and cover the diversity in our community, while understanding that everyone has different viewpoints.

“We want to engage as wide a community cross section as possible and have a community voice.

“People said they really feel like they can’t do much as an individual, but as a group we will have much more of a say.”