Byron Shire’s infrastructure has become beyond repair.
Reports of new overflow of sewage. Reports of decades of no maintenance to our stormwater drains.
The consequences of flooding are directly proportional to this storm of ongoing neglect.
Shire-wide areas are being affected from the simplest of local government regulations ignored to our major infrastructure needs.
Yet the additional development keeps pushing ahead. I have tried to get responses from officials’ government departments who for some reason believe it’s just easier to pass the buck back to our council, or in the latest reach out to another official government department.
What can be done the no funding just gets told to us year in year out. The variations above pegged rates set by the Valuer-General have been ongoing for decades with no significant changes.
We are in a complete mess shire-wide.
We certainly need an independent audit but most of all the need to protest and march on Council has become very apparent. We just can’t afford to have our properties devalued and undermined by failing systems that have no basis for being made fit for purpose.
The costs of neglect have blown out bigger than we have been told. Decades of neglect of upgrades and maintenance have all caused budget deficits. The system has let us down, the council has let us down. Insurance costs rising beyond our means. I am looking into a protest march as this is the only way we will get media attention and the powers that be to listen.
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. 
