Bid to return council HQ down hill

LISMORE City Council is again looking down the hill for a future headquarters, this time with a plan to share a building with other government agencies.

LISMORE City Council is again looking down the hill for a future headquarters, this time with a plan to share a building with other government agencies.

Lismore Mayor Jenny Dowell said a $20,000 feasibility study on the idea was in its infancy and about four years away from bearing fruit – assuming it ever blossoms at all.

The idea is the latest in a series of proposals to head back to Lismore’s CBD that have been cropping up at semi-regular intervals since the council moved to Goonellabah in the 1980s. The most recent was a plan a few years back to set up a new headquarters in the commercial precinct proposed to accompany the planned Lismore art gallery and museum.

Cr Dowell said moving the council’s headquarters back to the CBD would help make the council more accessible to residents but, more importantly, would add the council’s 300 workers to the CBD’s economy.

Lismore Chamber of Commerce president Brenton Shalders agreed an extra 300 workers would help the city’s shops. However, he also wondered at the potential negative impact on Goonellabah of taking the council staff away.

Cr Dowell said the last time the idea of heading downtown was publicly raised the council immediately received several unsolicited calls from businesses wanting to take over the existing headquarters.

She said the growth of Goonellabah businesses, particularly with the impending arrival of a Woolworths supermarket opposite the Goonellabah Village shopping centre, suggested the community’s economy was going strong.

However, the move downtown was far from certain, with Cr Dowell reluctant even to go so far as describe it as a “plan”.

Originally published as Bid to return council HQ down hill