This year a new annual charge has been introduced to most urban residential and business category properties in the Clarence Valley to fund a dedicated Urban Stormwater Management Program.
The Stormwater Management Charge is $25 for each applicable residential parcel of rateable land, and $12.50 for residential strata lots, while land categorised as business incurs a $25 charge.
The charge was added to the Local Government Act in 2005 to allow councils to fund drainage improvement activities. The majority of local government areas from Mid Coast Council to the Queensland border currently apply the charge, however until now Clarence Valley Council has not implemented the charge.
PICTURED: The majority of neighbouring councils have already implemented the Stormwater Management Charge.
Clarence Valley Council Director Works and Civil Jamie Fleeting said there was an expectation in the community that Council should be doing more in terms of ongoing maintenance of drainage across the Valley.
“The consistent messaging from the broader community is Council should be investing more to alleviate nuisance-type flooding and impacts from blockages in stormwater systems and unmaintained open drains,” Mr Fleeting said.
“This has become particularly evident since the 2021 and 2022 floods and the stormwater issues that arose from those events.
“The Stormwater Management Charge, fixed at $25, is an important step towards addressing a backlog of significant stormwater issues across the Valley. It will allow Council to invest in a broad range of maintenance, upgrade, investigation and resourcing activities.”
Activities in this program include general drainage maintenance, clearing blocked pipes, CCTV pipe investigations, open/swale drain maintenance, renewal/upgrade works, water quality initiatives such as additional urban street sweeping, and pump renewal.
The anticipated revenue from the Stormwater Management Charge in 2023/24 is about $420,000.
“All Council assets are assigned a condition rating between one and five. Of our stormwater assets, we have identified at least $10 million worth of complete renewal works that needs to be undertaken across the Valley on assets rated poor (4) or very poor (5).
“In the absence of State or Federal grant funding, we need to be better equipped to be able to fund these important initiatives.”
