2022 Adelaide Hills Council Candidate

I passionately believe we need strong representation for peri urban suburbs in the Adelaide Hills Council. As a resident of Woodforde I have seen exponential growth in the foothills and with my background in advocacy would be your representative for residents.

We live in a uniquely beautiful area with significant fauna, wildlife and National Parks on our doorsteps. We need to stay with a Council that understands what it is like to have a home and business in this environment. I would be your advocate with the Boundary Change Committee.

I’m experienced in governance having Chaired Felixstow Community School Governing Council, been a founding Board Member of the Women’s Safety Services of SA and been on Premier’s Council for Women. Working as a Consultant in the not-for-profit sector I raise the voices of the marginalised and disadvantaged.

I will be your voice as a Councillor on the Adelaide Hills Council.

Never taking our home for granted.

I travel around Australia for work and love coming home. I often brag to my interstate colleagues about living in the best part of South Australia with homes nestled in a lush environment and views of the Adelaide Plains. We have National Parks on our doorsteps and koalas living in our trees, while this makes us very lucky we can’t afford to take this for granted.

There is so much we cherish about living in the Adelaide Hills and it’s important we work hard to preserve this. We need to be vigilant in protecting our environment and homes.

As a resident of Woodforde on the border of Adelaide Hills Council I’ve seen exponential growth all around me. I have advocated for our significant gums and the planting of native plants and shrubs we have lost with new developments. However when I look to the local council and Councillors I see no representation of residents in the foothills.

We are a part of the Adelaide Hills Councils and our issues are shared by those living deep in the Council area, however we see very little presence of our Council here.

I believe we need to strengthen our advocacy for quarantining environmental spaces and listening to our Residents concerns. When you live in such a large Council it is easy to feel forgotten. A Council that is truly representative of its residents and businesses would have Councillors that come from all of its areas.

Development

With the introduction and expansion of Hamilton Hill we have seen a huge loss in trees and native shrubs. We have also seen the planning and development of houses that are built boundary to boundary with no addition of greenery or trees. While our Planning laws are now unified across the state we need to review our Codes and look more closely at how new properties are incorporating native vegetation. As Councillors we can challenge new developments which are not green.

I often tell people that when I first moved in to Woodforde the significant gum tree straight outside my home was where a mother koala came every year to breed. As more and more development has gone up she too has disappeared. This to me is the canary in the coal mine.

I have also seen with my own eyes properties go up with wooden frames and cladding without a single brick used to build the home. While it can be argued some cladding is fire retardant, if we experience a firestorm from Morialta National Park, these will go up as tinder boxes.

Bushfire Mitigation

Every year I see emails from the Councils telling us to be bushfire ready, but how many residents down here actually adhere to it? We need more vigilance and communication from the Adelaide Hills Councils in the foothills to prepare us too.

We all love living next door to Morialta National Park, but how many of us have considered what would happen if there was a bushfire there? We are at risk and we have seen what has happened to other communities when that risk is real.

Just because we have high density living in the foothills that should not make us complacent. I want to see more done by the Council to prepare us for what we have seen our neighbours experience up the hill at Norton Summit.

Footpaths

My home is on Norton Summit Road and when my son went to primary school at Magill it bothered me deeply that there were no safe footpaths for him to walk down the road to school. Instead we had to take a detour through an industrial area that as a mother made me feel unsafe for both of us.

We have children in our area walking down the hill to Magill School and Rostrevor College. We need to make safe accessible pathways for them – and all residents. Our footpaths are neglected and we need to make this a priority.

Our area is growing and the Adelaide Hills Council needs to prioritise its facilities and infrastructure in this area. We can do this by having strong representation of the foothills on the Adelaide Hills Council.