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Items of Interest – Council Meeting – 4 May 2016

By May 4, 2016November 3rd, 2017No Comments

VEGAN RETREAT CENTRE FOR KURANDA
Council approved the application for the establishment of a small boutique vegan retreat centre, offering raw food preparation classes/workshops and associated yoga classes in Kuranda. The retreat will also offer Bed and Breakfast style accommodation for 12 guests.
The tourist facility will also include a commercial kitchen, family/dining room and bathroom facilities, and a separate garden studio for retreat and workshop activities housing a yoga room, disabled bathroom, bedroom and a common area.
Known as ‘Fairy Land House’ the retreat will be advertised as a raw food vegan and yoga retreat centre and will be a smoke, alcohol, drug and digital (tech) free destination.

BUDGET ON TRACK
Mareeba Shire Council’s Budget 2016-2017 is expected to be handed down in June. Mayor Tom Gilmore said “preparation of the budget is proceeding very well indeed, and most of the background work is complete. There are still Council workshops to complete final detail before the budget is handed down next month.”
Council already has endorsed proposed fees and charges for Animal Management, Environmental Health, Local Laws, Cemeteries and Urban and Regional Planning fees for the next financial year.
The underlying principle used in establishing the 2016-2017 fees has been on a cost recovery basis that said in the majority of cases this is simply a CPI increase.
Mareeba Shire Council Mayor Tom Gilmore said: “costs for services are reviewed annually, with a cost recovery model applied wherever possible; however there are certain areas where this is discounted.”

RECYCLE PLANS FOR MAREEBA
The Mareeba Shire Council endorsed a proposal from Recycle Design and Technologies (RDT) for the collection and removal of plastic waste from the Mareeba Transfer Station.
Excited about the prospect, Mayor Tom Gilmore said “this proposal is at no cost ($0) to Council and represents an excellent opportunity to reduce waste to landfill and reduce costs to the community with a great environmental outcome.”
After extensive research and subsequent initial discussions with representatives from RDT, a meeting was arranged with Council’s Mayor and Senior Water and Waste staff. This led to a formal offer being provided to Council from RDT for the collection, bailing and removal of plastic waste (copy attached) for recycling.
The offer from RDT included the collection, bailing for recycling of the following plastic waste products:
• Plastic Fluming
• Crop Cover (plastic netting)
• Plastic Containers
• Plastic Film (pallet wrap, Cotton bale Wrap and/or similar but not plastic mulch film)
• Plastic bumper bars from cars
At this stage, RDT cannot process or collect the plastic mulch cover (either Black or the White product) due to excessively high organic contamination contained within the mulch but they are looking at ways to resolving this issue.