HOUSING and liveability are at the centre of the Swan Hill Rural City Council’s proposed plan to tackle the critical worker shortage in the region within the next five years.
The draft Economic Development Strategy 2024-2030 outlines a roadmap to address the collective needs of industries, housing and tourism to align the community’s direction and increase economic output.
During extensive community consultation, difficulty attracting and retaining skilled workers and the resulting critical skill shortages were identified as the underlying issue facing the region.
The draft strategy aims to address the cause of this shortage through greater housing development, improved lifestyle infrastructure and inter-industry collaboration.
The council’s director of development and planning, Michelle Grainger, said that the centre of each issue addressed in the draft strategy was diversifying the municipality’s static housing supply of single-storey dwellings on residential blocks to allow for more housing, including to accommodate a temporary workforce.
“We need to look at affordable housing, some more units, apartments, townhouses, dual occupancies, tiny houses,” Ms Grainger said.
“So, in some of our towns we will see a change in our density, but it is about making sure we have a variety of housing stock to meet our community and workforce needs.
The council identified housing as a pathway to support neighbouring municipalities’ wind farm proposals and future green energy projects.
“We see that Swan Hill could become a bit of a hub for the workforce for those projects,” Ms Grainger said.
She said the strategic approach the council had taken in producing the draft strategy provided the community with a resource to use in gaining state and federal government funding.
“We’ve now put ourselves in a position where we have a great resource to put to government to encourage them to fund projects here, and we’re starting to see the results of that,” Ms Grainger said.
The federal government has committed $5 million to the council’s Reinvigorating Our Riverfront project through the Growing Regions Program – the application for which the draft strategy was used to demonstrate the role that the riverfront development would play in progressing the shared goals of Swan Hill.
The council is encouraging the community to engage with the drafting process and provide feedback at drop-in sessions:
* Swan Hill: Monday 27 May, 10.0am-noon, Swan Hill Region Information Centre
* Robinvale: Wednesday 29 May, 10.30am-noon, Robinvale Resource Centre.
