Diary of My Day

Have gone off the garden path! I’ve discovered recently there is a push to open a shopping centre on the highway just outside of Woopi- with a Coles supermarket. This issue is connected to my project because my project is focusing on encouraging gardening and sustainable food production and consumption. Although I mostly just wanted to start a little project of people interested in gardening and exchanging things, I’m also interested in local economies generally... so now I’ve been trying to read up on all of this! There’s already a monstrosity of a shopping centre (with a Coles and accompanying liquor store) ten minutes down the road at Moonee Beach on the highway, and a lot of the shops are empty. If another shopping centre is put out on the highway it would not only be overkill, but would also divide the town- there would be no reason for people to drive into Woopi where there are a lot of unique local businesses and no chain stores. I’m sure local business would suffer. From a long term economic point of view (I'm trying to see it from a council perspective) it seems like Woopi having a niche, unique feel would be a huge advantage given that so many Australian town on the East Coast are beginning to look the same (i.e. stock standard shops like Woolies, Coles, K-Mart, Big W, Myers, McDonalds, KFC etc). Anyway, this is my current opinion which may change as I find out more… this is not as easy as it sounds. The newspaper articles on it are really confusing, the council’s webpage offers little info, the council meeting minutes are vague, I couldn’t find the plan at the library and I’m starting to wonder if there is a purpose behind making these plans so hard to access!

Here's a link to one of the newspaper articles for anyone interested.
http://www.coffscoastindependent.com.au/news/local/news/general/calls-to-rezone-highway-land-at-woolgoolga/1792477.aspx