Once upon a time, Ocean Shores was a very proud town as all houses were to be built brick, garages large enough to occupy all vehicles, washing lines were not to be visible from the road and fencing disallowed and there had to be one representative from Ocean Shores on Byron Shire Council (BSC).
What do we have today? Utter shambles and it even makes one cry. Houses being built with whatever, footpaths hardly exist as they were loaded with parked cars and caravans and ugly fences have appeared everywhere.
Ocean Shores incidentally does not have one representative on Council. Once we applied to the Tweed Heads Council (THC) to be included in their shire. The Tweed Council members came down to Ocean Shores and inspected it carefully and decided that it was too decadent to join their shire.
Now we have a larger population than Byron Bay. No representative on Council. We do not have the closure of shops being experienced in Byron. Reading down the BSC’s achievements for the year, Ocean Shores had absolutely zero money spent on it to make it a more liveable town.
What was laughable to me was that BSC spent over $2m on a skateboard park. Who for? Not really the local kids but to attract hundreds of tourists’ children. My Council rates, probably like everyone else in Ocean Shores, were $3,740. Surely they can wake up to themselves without having to have one member from Ocean Shores on Council to see that this town has its roads resurfaced, footpaths remade and force residents to remove cars and caravans off their footpaths?
Let us hope and pray that next year we will see some money really spent in the largest populated town in Byron Shire.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
