Shire strives to engage public
The Shire of Denmark has hit back at recent criticism from the town's business community that its consultation is lacking.
The Denmark Chamber of Commerce and Industry held a meeting last Monday at which about 100 members representing 67 businesses called for the Shire's engagement to be improved, which Shire president Ross Thornton said was "surprising".
Mr Thornton said the Shire continually strove to improve consultation with the town's residents, often with "disappointing" results.
"You can always do it better (and) we are trying to make those improvements all the time," he said.
"We continually try to have better communication with the public, seen through our latest policy on community consultation, adopted two months ago.
"We try … to get information out there, but there will always be times when we could have got more information out there earlier."
Mr Thornton said it was often hard to stimulate feedback unless issues affected residents directly.
"You ask people if they read the council webpage or (council meeting) agendas and very few of them do," he said.
"At our annual general meeting about two months ago we had no one turn up for the first time on record I think.
"Sometimes you think you are going to get community involvement and get very little feedback or you do not get anything."
He said workshops regarding the town's new planning scheme were poorly attended.
"We expected 60-80 people and we got about 18 in one and 26 in another," he said.
Shire chief executive Dale Stewart wrote a letter to chamber members ahead of the meeting, expressing the Shire's "strong desire to constantly strive to improve its consultation and engagement with the community."
