YOUR OPINION

SUMMARY OF BYRON BUSINESS GROUP MEETING OF 8.11.05

Meeting attended by business owners and manages from Jonson and Lawson streets.

 Couple of apologies, including our Lord Mayor.

Agenda discussed was Parking, CBD beautification, CBD rate rise, Tourism and Crime, Rubbish and ‘Blues Fest' and ‘Blues' buskers' strategies.

On Parking we resolved to continue our previous stated position ie to support paid parking in the two designated car parking lots, behind Jonson Street shops as well as the beach front north of Jonson Street. These car parks have around 240 car spaces, with approximately 40% empty for much of the year.

Council is considering charging for parking in the Clarkes Beach car park as well as Lawson, Johnson, Fletcher and Byron streets.

On a more positive note, in May 05 councillors called for a Retail Economic Impact study to gauge the effects of paid parking on business activity in Byron Bay .

Our business group has much data on this however we have not been approached by council for any information or surveys as indeed has any other body or individual business at this stage.

We continue to absolutely oppose paid parking on the cbd shopping streets, we note also that Byron council was one of the most aggressive councils in NSW for booking tourist, up from $700K plus last year to $1.2M plus this year.

Based on council data, revenue produced from paid parking over 18 months amounted to $577,703 with expenditure of $308,822 producing a profit of $268,881.

We remain suspect of accounting methods used as to all expenditure included and look forward to an independent analysis by our own accountants.

We understand council is proceeding to hit the ‘soft' targets (ie streets fringing the cbd) with paid parking in the meantime. We will be sending a letter of our concerns to council and requesting them not to proceed further until the proposed survey on business is concluded.

We would also like a pledge from council that locals will never be asked to pay to park in the cbd area.

Purely as a single of support to local surfers, we support paid parking at the lighthouse, but free for locals at the beaches, especially Tallows, Clarke's, and The Pass.

Byron Biz Group spokesman for this issue is Barry Wallace.

On CBD beautification, Ed Ahern spoke of his recent conversation with Mayor, Jan Barham re beautification of Railway Park.Members at the meeting were curious as to weather the ‘parkies' will still allowed to drink alcohol and sometimes behave badly in the newly refurbished park.

Byron Biz Group spokesman for this issue is Ed Ahern.

CBD rate increase. Byron central rates have increased approx. 200% over the last two years. Barry has spoken to Jan about this issue; however Jan believes that Byron has to be brought in line with other major cities like Bondi and Coffs Harbour ???

BBG believes there is no comparison, Byron doesn't have the same infrastructure, plus Bondi is supported by 4M Sydney residents while Coffs has 80K of their own, all with cars.

On the other hand Byron only has 8K residents to sustain trade over winter months.

People come to Byron for the lifestyle and shopping.

Local businesses are gradually being replaced by national franchises, making it very hard for the smaller independent, interesting shops.

Sevegine( Temple of Light ) comments…”Amongst members, the move of global business moving into the retail community of Byron Bay is of concern.

The fear being that the uniqueness of Byron Bay shopping will be diminished or lost if it was left to go unmonitored.

The move itself is multi faceted in that rate increases over the last two years have been passed by landlords onto retailers thus causing rent increases. Some of the less established, but importantly unique and interesting retailers are struggling to meet such demands especially over the winter season. Raising rents by any cause reduce labour opportunities, sometimes causing small business closure thus creating the opportunity for multi, internationals and franchises to move in and use the trademark of Byron. The result is a growing number of fast food outlets and retail chains. Exactly what has happened to Bondi.

As shopping is listed by visitors as being within their top three reasons for visiting, the general feeling is that we need to actively promote and encourage more visitors in order to sustain and improve local businesses and thus employment opportunities.”

Further comments from members of the need to create income and increase sales. Campaign perhaps needed to attract shoppers, even locals.

Results- Flag this issue for monitoring as the situation further evolves and develops.

BBG spokesman, this issues, Sevegine.

Tourism and Crime. Comments…The town deserves more respect.

 Q.Why are alcoholics permitted to drink in public and often being aggressive while tourist and locals are being fined?

BBG are concerned by the aggressive unauthorised busking on corners of Jonson and Lawson streets. Basically buskers are somewhat colourful and good for the town, but some are obviously out of control. We feel perhaps there is and initiative for restaurants and other suitable businesses to ‘sponsor' buskers for their own patrons. Some businesses already do this.

Regarding the Rex Hunt fiasco, bottom line is that if police were showing a higher and continuing presence in the CBD area, the incident may not have occurred.

BBG spokesman this issue, Barry Wallace.

RUBBISH on big weekends, even by Friday nights ordinary week, the bins are full, so they're left over the weekend and streets are a mess by Monday.

We were promised new bins; need to find out what is happening with them.

Garry to write a letter to council enquiring as to progress.

BBG spokesman this issue, Gary Charles.

BLUESFEST strategy. Sandy had a meeting with Blues Fest GM who is happy to work with us. Blues fest has suggested the event be privatised, this will need more investigation.

Sandy to coordinate with shops a prize pool for the busker's competition next year.

Gary will do a prototype for a flagpole to carry the festival lights.

BBG spokesman this issue, Sandy (Cocomangas).

POSTED MARCH 2005:

To Byron Shire Council,

For attention  Brett Lee and Jane Hoult,

P.O. Box  219, Mullumbimby. 2482

Re: Parking in Byron Bay CBD report for March council meeting,

Following our recent discussions with your department we wish to voice our concerns at the narrow guidelines set for the latest report.

We understand that the report is expected to comment primly on parking and related revenue in the CBD with no reference at all as to how paid parking in the streets will affect the commercial, cultural and social directions of the township.

Our 350 members in the CBD have strong links to the Chamber of Commerce locally and nationally, the vast majority of who are totally opposed to paid parking on the CBD streets.

We are very disappointed with council management that, despite our co-operation with council during the trial period and the losses we and our staff incurred, and after giving the council accurate feedback, that no effort has been made to include the commercial, cultural and social implications of revisiting this disastrous folly.

After the trial last year all our members were surveyed, let me repeat some of the more horrendous results of your trial.

70% of commercial operators recorded a downturn in trade at an average of 21%.

During the same period NSW retailers reported and average of 5.5% increase in trade.

41% of survey sample said as a result of downturn in trade they laid off staff for an average of 25 hours/week.

49% said no lay off of staff but the majority of these were sole traders or professional offices (accountants, lawyers, real estate etc).

0% hired extra staff over trial period.

The survey results assessed $2M was lost in wages (not earned ) over the trial period, this directly equates to loss of  115 full time staff positions, the ramifications of which I can only imagine.

Byron CBD employs 3500 people. 1200 permanent staff resides in Byron Shire.

1300 casual/part time staff resides in Byron Shire.250 permanent staff resides outside Byron shire, whilst 750 casual/part time staff reside outside the Byron Shire.

Apart from contributing to the demise of the ‘village' tourist industry as we know it, we believe that council does have a ‘duty of care' to the employers and employees of the CBD. Further, we believe that any reports on parking in Byron must include all issues rather than focusing solely on revenue. I would also take this opportunity to remind council that the CBD traders are already penalised by paying a heavy levy on rates that were introduced without any consultation to supposedly capture the tourist dollar.

Yours faithfully,

Byron Business Group,

Barry Wallace,

25/2/05