THE DEBACLE over Uralla’s Visitor Information Centre trudges forward, with council voting to spend $10,000 on a professional consultant.
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Uralla Shire Council councillors themselves appeared frustrated with the old cafe space, which has been empty for the last four years.
“At the end of the day this has been a very lengthy process without any outcome,” councillor Robert Bell said.
“We want an actual way forward, this was on the agenda day one of the first council meeting and we’re still running around in circles with the same space.”
In 2015 council was met with community backlash when it made the decision to move the Visitor Information Centre into the library.
The move was postponed to run a survey, receiving more than 200 responses – where 38 of 41 comments were opposed to the relocation.
On April 26, 364 days ago, councillors held a meeting and decided not to move the centre, and it has sat idle since.
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Tasked with leading the VIC Improvement Project Reference Group, Cr Tara Toomey presented council with a number of options for the space – including digital marketing materials, a pop-up shop for local products and improvements to the sales systems.
Without a full time tourism officer, general manager Andrew Hopkins supported the engagement of a consultant, saying council is “resource lean” at the moment.
“In fact I’m quite worried about our capacity for staff to be deployed to certain things,” he said on Tuesday.
“We are going to market but we can’t ensure that it will be ready for the time frames you have put there.”
The consultant’s job will be to establish a timeline and budget for centring the VIC with the shire’s tourism assets and developing digital videos and marketing.
They will also be responsible for costing improvements to sales, new and flexible display units, a tourist guide and establishing free Wi-Fi.
All councillors seemed in agreement that something needed to be done with the space, but there was some argy-bargy about the $10,000 price tag from Cr Natasha Ledger who thought council should focus on marketing the centre.
“The VIC is operating at a higher level than it ever has at the moment, I don’t see how we’re going to benefit by making more expectations for $10,000,” she said.
But, most of the councillors agreed there wasn’t much to market at this point.
Eventually it was decided council would reengage the VIC Project Reference Group to work hand-in-hand with the consultant.
That brings the budget for the development down to just more than $284,000.
A report on the consultants findings is expected at the September meeting, including time frames and costings for any further work.
The vote was made at the meeting on Tuesday, with Cr Ledger the only vote against the consultant.