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Our Creek, Our Resilience: Council wants to hear how flooding impacts residents
Gladstone Regional Council is developing flood resilience projects, titled Our Creek, Our Resilience, and wants to hear from residents about how flooding impacts them.
Certain areas within the Gladstone Region are susceptible to riverine flooding and Council is working to better understand, prepare for and work towards better flood management.
The first flood resilience project focusses on the Baffle Creek area, with several community engagement initiatives to take place over the coming months.
Council officers will conduct their first piece of community engagement on Saturday 26 September from midday-2pm at the Baffle Creek Family Fishing Festival’s Family Fun Day.
Community workshops will be held on 26 and 27 October in Baffle Creek and Lowmead respectively.
Further workshops will be held in Baffle Creek (23 November) and Agnes Water (24 November). Residents can register their interest, and find out further information on the community workshops, via Council’s Conversations platform from 26 September until 5 October.
Gladstone Region Mayor Matt Burnett said focussing on the Baffle Creek catchment area, which is prone to flooding, would be the first project to kick off the Our Creek, Our Resilience campaign.
“An important part of the Our Creek, Our Resilience project is understanding how flooding affects our community by checking flood modelling investigations with residents who live in flood-affected areas,” Councillor Burnett said.
“Council is also preparing an amendment to our Planning Scheme to include a flood overlay for the Baffle Creek area.
“Changes to this would allow Council to identify land with a flood risk and appropriately control the development of land at risk of flooding.”
Cr Burnett said all Councils in Queensland have received a recommendation from the Bureau of Meteorology to review the flood classifications in all catchments within their local government area, in line with the new guideline that has been released by the Queensland Reconstruction Authority, Flood classifications in Queensland: A best practice guide for local governments.
“The flood classification review process requires community input, so the review of the flood classifications within the Baffle Creek catchment will be incorporated into this community engagement exercise,” he said.
“The outcomes and findings from the Baffle Creek catchment area will be presented to the community in February 2021.”
Please visit https://conversations.gladstone.qld.gov.au for more information and to register your interest in one of the upcoming community workshops.
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