A few years ago I helped develop Council’s first ever Green Grid. It’s a map with places of interest, connected via tree-lined streets and no Council had ever done it before in Australia. It involved multiple units within Council, and helped us achieve a grant of $1.5 million which was used to plant over 5,000 trees in the Shire. It’s now been legislated in our Local Environment Plan – which is an incredibly hard thing to do.
I love that in my job, I get to think about and action the things that matter most to our community – our connection to nature. Our big commitments that I’m currently working on are our Tree and Bushland Strategy and our goal to achieve a net-zero impact by 2030. These are issues that matter a lot to our community, and are also quite high-profile, with significant interest from our Councillors.
I’ve been at Council for 14 years. I joined as a Student Planner in the Development Assessment team after I graduated from university. I’ve spent the majority of my time at Council in the Strategic Planning unit and am now Acting Senior Manager of the Environmental Science team - I’ve enjoyed jumping over to the other side to work with a team I’d always collaborated with. They’re a team of highly-skilled technical experts, passionate about our natural environment. It’s a bit of out my comfort zone, as I’m not an expert, but I’ve loved taking the leap.
I can’t imagine being anywhere else.