'Leisurely does it' is council watchword

"Leisurely does it" seems to be the watchword at Central Coast Council.

The latest announcement that the Woy Woy Town Centre Master Plan will be completed in June 2020 ("Town plan, coastal works and library project scheduled", July 10) is typical.

This is three years to complete a job that any competent planner could do in nine months at the outside.

It is characteristic that, after 15 months of administration, we still do not have an integrated operational structure, an integrated website or an integrated development control plan, although we are assured that "many service and management strategies are in their formative stages."

Formative after 15 months?

Surely, the task of the administrator was to have all of those issues dealt with before the new Council took office, so that councillors could focus on critical decision-making and not on picayune matters of organization.

The Council seems to be obsessed with such matters as the Chinese fun-fair fiasco and the Warnervale airport fantasy and not concentrating on the long-term needs of the Central Coast as a whole.

Incidentally, when are we going to hear something from our Co-ordinator-General whose appointment was announced with much fanfare some time back?

It seems, as I predicted, that this will turn out to be just another excuse for a bureaucratic talkfest, full of sound and promises, signifying nothing.

Perhaps, the administrator could use his weekly newspaper column to fill us in on the issues of importance that we are facing rather than confine himself to self-congratulatory platitudes.

Roll on September.

I had high hopes for the administrator when he took office, but we obviously have to put our trust in a new elected Council to take the reins and give the region some direction.

When are the talented individuals that we need going to step forward?

Email, 12 Jul 2017

Bruce Hyland, Woy Woy.