‘Not good enough’: Kyogle mayor slams insufficient housing development

The Kyogle mayor says a lot more should be done to support people living in regional areas, with basic needs such as housing, internet and mobile reception severely lacking.

Cr Danielle Mulholland took to Facebook to address her concerns.

A Northern Rivers mayor has slammed the current housing crisis as she pushes for a renewed focus on regional development.

Kyogle Council mayor Danielle Mulholland took to Facebook on Monday after noticing “more and more social media posts from people who want to stay in Kyogle but can’t find housing.”

With North Coast areas taking the brunt of the housing crisis, she said the influx of new residents had also crept into Kyogle.

But she said in many cases, rural gains from the boom were halted by limited resources, stating it was “simply unbelievable and not good enough”.

“I still find it hard to accept that here we are well into the 21st century when I was hoping for jet packs and flying cars and what we have is many areas where a basic mobile phone or internet service is inaccessible,” she wrote.

“For the regions to grow and take some of the pressure off our increasingly growing and stressed cities, people have to be able to connect with each other, for education, health, employment and so on.

“In terms of world ranking, Australia’s broadband internet connection speeds sits at no. 60 with countries such as Vietnam, Serbia, Estonia, Panama, Romania and so on all having better internet speeds than us.

“If we want the regions outside the capital cities to grow and realise their full potential, we simply have to do better than we are, or those modest population gains we’ve seen from the Covid led migration, will reverse as people drift back to the cities seeking better connectivity.”

She also stressed the need for more development and in many cases, more funding to ease the pressures off the Kyogle community.

“I personally think we also need to make provision for housing for those who are transitioning from off farm to an independent living unit – there’s a demand for it but there’s not enough at present to go around,” she said.

“We also have little in the way of crisis or emergency housing. Across the region, we have lower levels of social housing than the state average.”

She also said Kyogle Council had been considering current planning policies in place.