Hervey Bay Gossip

… the tough don’t rely on the Government or the Fraser Coast Regional Council for help

If you run a business here in Hervey Bay that attracts a lot of tourists to the town you might expect that the Fraser Coast Regional Council and the regional tourism board might be interested in promoting what you’re doing. Unfortunately if you thought that you would be mistaken.

The Fraser Coast Regional Council hides behind the excuse that it can’t be seen to be favouring one part of the area over another … so it doesn’t do much for anyone and the regional tourism council … well when the going gets tough they either go on holidays or schedule their promotions for the wrong time of year.

So with little hope of help from anyone in authority there are now two groups here in Hervey Bay who are doing there own thing to promote this town and all that it has to offer to tourists.

Holiday Hervey Bay was started by a number of concerned independant resort operators. These are the little people who run resorts like La Mer, Tingeera, Shelly Bay Resort and many more around Hervey Bay. They weren’t happy with the way Hervey Bay was being promoted by the tourism board, or the board’s timing in some of the promotions they have run recently, and so they decided to so something about it.

The first step was Holiday Hervey Bay, a website designed to attract people to the town for a lot more than just whale watching and Fraser Island. They want to encourage tourists see the attractions in town and to use Hervey Bay as a base and travel out to the surrounding areas where there are plenty of things to do and see. There are a lot of local businesses and service providers coming on board to support this group because we can see that if we want this town to grow then we’re going to have to do the hard work ourselves.

We here at Total Website Management are donating our time to this very worthy cause and we challenge other small businesses here in Hervey Bay to pitch in and help too.

For more information about the Holiday Hervey Bay group call Kevin Smith at La Mer on 4128 3494.

Down in Scarness there’s a small group of local businesses who are banding together to try and promote their part of town and at the same time provide some entertainment for the people of Hervey Bay. Of course it’s a struggle when the Fraser Coast Regional Council doesn’t respond to their requests because someone always seems to be on holidays (seems someone at the Council has been taking a leaf out of the tourism board’s staff handbook).

If you’re a local business and you want to help those local businesses down at Scarness then talk to Stuart at Fraser Sands Crystal and Glassware at Shop 1 352 The Esplanade Scarness, he would love to hear from you.

From today the roundabout at the intersection of Main Street and the Esplanade in Pialba will become a T intersection as work continues on the Water Park.

You can expect some traffic delays while the roundabout is out of commission and it will probably be wise to avoide that intersection completely until the work that will take place in the middle of what was the roundabout has been completed.

There has been yet another 4wd rollover on Fraser Island this morning. Two people were killed and eight others injured when a 4wd vehicle carrying 11 tourists rolled on the eastern side of the island about 8am.

Accidents involving 4wd vehicles carrying tourists … usually backpackers who are on self-drive tours of the island are not uncommon. While drivers who have little or no experience of 4wd operation in the difficult conditions experienced on Fraser Island are allowed to drive vehicles filled to capacity with people and luggage these accidents will continue to happen.

Some of these drivers have difficulty driving the vehicles around the streets of Hervey Bay so it’s no wonder that they encounter difficulties on the beaches where they have no idea of what is hidden in the sand.

Jim MacKellar asks the question but will we ever get a straight answer?

From a snippet in the local paper this week about the FCRC portfolio committees – “each committee will meet on a three-month basis instead of monthly’.

This means that Council now meets for 3 to 4 hours each month, the Planning & Development Committee for 2 hours a month and all other standing committees only each quarter.

Binding decisions can only be made by resolution of a formal meeting of Council or one of its standing committees. So we must ask ‘who is making the decisions’?

A review of meeting agendas reveals that Council is covering little more than the statutory requirements in its public meetings. If the Councillors are making the decisions then they are making them behind closed doors and not in the accountable arena of an open meeting. A majority of decisions made in private (secrecy) has no place in an open and transparent administration.

The only other credible scenario is that our Councillors have abrogated their responsibility and control of the FCRC is vested, almost completely, in the employed executive. If this is the case why do we have Councillors? Who is representing the residents?

It has to be asked – Who is running our Council?

The trough that  brought so much rain and subsequent flooding to the Sunshine Coast seems to have faded away before it could reach Hervey Bay. Only a few showers have hit Hervey Bay today and there’s nothing more than scattered showers forecast for the region for Saturday and Sunday.

Things weren’t looking quite so promising yesterday evening when there were storm clouds gathering over Fraser Island.

One weekend casualty of the weather though is the Howard Country Markets. The next markets will be on May 2nd.

The Burrum Heads Easter Fishing Classic is on again this year running from Good Friday through to Easter Sunday and even if you aren’t interested in fishing it’s still worth a drive out to Burrum Heads just to have a look at all the activity.

If you’ve been out there before you’ll know that it’s not easy to get a good cup of coffee in Burrum Heads but this year it’s going to be different. This year Dolphin Waters Estate will have a real barista on site on Saturday and Sunday and you’re welcome to stop in for a FREE cup of coffee.

Just look for the display on the corner just across the road from the BP Service Station and you can read more about it on the Burrum Heads Easter Fishing Classic page on the Dolphin Waters Estate website.