Cr Ros Heit
September 7, 2017
Kumbia will form a community committee to manage funds it receives from a grants program AGL will set up in conjunction with the Coopers Gap Wind Farm.
Cr Ros Heit told a meeting at Kumbia Hall on Thursday night that she had recently attended a quarterly Coopers Gap Community Consultative Committee meeting held at Cooranga North Hall.
At that meeting, AGL confirmed it will invest $30,000 per year into a community grants fund for the expected 25 year life of the wind farm.
AGL will also invest an additional $30,000 for the two-year construction phase of the project to compensate locals for any inconvenience they might experience while the wind farm is being built.
The money would be indexed during the 27-year life of the program to ensure it retained its purchasing power, and any funds unspent in any grants round would be carried forward to future rounds to ensure the fund was fully expended.
Cr Heit told the meeting the grants would be shared between Kumbia, Jandowae and Bell, so Kumbia’s share would be one third of the total.
However, she believed that if the community worked together they could use the fund to leverage much bigger State and Federal grants.
A community meeting held at the Kumbia Hotel in mid-July had identified a wide range of possible community improvement projects for the town.
They included the refurbishment of Kumbia’s tennis courts; an upgrade to Kumbia Hall’s kitchen; a meeting room at Kumbia State School; the installation of electricity at the race course reserve; a new bar, kitchen and dining room for Kumbia’s racecourse; lighting at the cricket club; and other similar projects.
“Many grants programs want to see a 20 per cent contribution from groups applying for a grant, and that tends to knock many groups out because they don’t have any funds,” Cr Heit said.
“But I believe if the Kumbia community can come together and agree on what town improvement projects they want to tackle, and then the order they want to tackle them in, we can use this fund to make major improvements to Kumbia over time.”
Cr Heit asked if anyone at the meeting would like to be on the new committee, and several hands immediately went up.
Other Kumbia district residents who’d like to join the committee should contact Cr Heit by phoning 0477-010-743 or email her.
