Draft Minutes for the Forum Meeting

Thursday 16th October 2025 7:30pm at the Uniting Church Hall

Present: 60 people attended, including Mayor Patricia White, CEO Andrew Constance, and Councilors Matthew Morris and Selena Clancy

Welcome and Introduction: Ian Hendry (Chair)

Minutes of Meeting held on 26 June 2025:  Approved

Mayor’s Briefing: Mowing of ovals care has been streamlined. The materials recovery facility will be trialed for 12 months. Peter Wilkins has been elected Deputy Mayor and Selena is Assistant Deputy Mayor. Australia Day will be held in Mollymook in 2026 and the location will be moved around the towns within the Shoalhaven in following years. The new OLG Code of Meeting Practice will commence in Jan 2026 – Councillor briefings on Thursdays prior to regular Council meetings will be public forums. Councilors must attend meetings in person. The Mayor will have power to remove councilors if acting inappropriately, without a vote.

Andrew Constance CEO: Provided an overview of his role as CEO and the financial challenges facing Council. He will be seeking investment interest in the Shoalhaven that will generate jobs. Participated in a meeting with four other council areas to advocate for improvements for areas.  Concerns were raised by a resident about inadequate parking at the hospital for nurses.

Council Finances
Stuart Coughlan provided a summary of Council’s 2024/25 financial results compared to the 2025/26 Budget, and advised that the new CEO had improved the exchange of information at his first Finance Committee meeting.

Berry Hotel DA: Stuart advised the Feros CEO had assumed all non-heritage issues were resolved at the Court hearing, but he was reminded that will need to be re-addressed with a new DA. Parking requirements for the Berry Hotel proposal are a major issue. Feros have proposed a total of 26 parking spaces for a pub capacity of 389 patrons compared to the 142 required based on their own survey results.

Before Stuart could report that Feros intends to arrange a public meeting, a former Committee member, Ms Harris, interrupted, alleging that the Committee was not doing enough to communicate information about the hotel development proposal more broadly in the community. Stuart explained the information would be disseminated via the newsletter and the Town Crier. The Chair informed Ms Harris that she should raise her concerns in the General Business segment of the meeting. However, she failed to do so.

Rotary Dog Park: David Brawn showed the location of the dog park in Council’s original plans and advised that Rotary will be holding a community fund-raising event on Sunday 16 November at the site of the dog park. Stage one is fencing of areas with an estimated cost of $70,000.

General Business:

  • Steve Franey, a resident representing a group of neighbouring property owners, voiced concerns about an application (MA24/1411) to modify the existing consent for small cooking classes and lunches twice a week at 450B Coolangatta Road, to gain permission for a restaurant to operate 7-days a week from 7am to 11pm with three sittings of 60 people. The applicant is Mr Peter Yannopoulos, owner of Linnaeus Collection.
  • A resident asked if the island crossing in Queen Street could be made a pedestrian crossing.
  • More information was requested about the three DAs lodged for 5-star hotels.

The Chair thanked Robin Baxendale and John Jeston for their contribution as members of the Berry Forum Committee.

Next Forum meeting – 4th December

AGM

  • Laurie Watson provided a summary of the income and payments for 2024/25, which can be found on the Forum website.
  • No applications had been received for Committee membership in response to invitations in the newsletter and the Town Crier. Eleven members of the Committee were re-appointed.

Meeting closed: 8:50pm