Plan for post-flood economic recovery released

The RDA Northern Rivers Board has announced the release of the RDA Northern Rivers Regional Economic Recovery Plan 2025 (RERP).

The Regional Economic Recovery Plan captures the impact of the 2022 floods providing a picture of the financial burden and its impact on the region. This document proposes to support the efforts of Northern Rivers economic development practitioners to fully recover from the recent catastrophic flood event.

With a focus on recovery, the Plan sets out a roadmap for an economic recovery, where the region is stronger, more prepared, and able to mitigate the devastation experienced in the February/March 2022 flooding.

The report tackles the fact that housing, transport, infrastructure, and businesses were all devastated in the floods across all seven council areas.

Primary production and rural landholders were also very severely impacted leading to millions of dollars of losses to many sectors, including beef, dairy, sugar, horticulture, forestry, apiary, and other primary production sectors.

RDA Northern Rivers Chair, The Hon Don Page said he nevertheless had great confidence in the resilience of the community to overcome challenges,

‘Like so many other regions, together we sustained our communities through drought, bushfires, a long period of pandemic and rain events,’ Mr Page said.

‘All these events, however, have been overtaken in size and scope by the catastrophic flooding which hit Northern NSW and South East Qld from February 28, 2022.

‘The road to recovery has been remarkably swift for some communities, others are getting back on their feet but unfortunately for many communities, there is a long and costly road ahead to full recovery.’

The plan can be accessed through the RERP website http://rdanorthernrivers.org.au/recovery2025. PDF copies can be downloaded from the site.