The Central Coast region will benefit from a new $200 million flood recovery package announced today.
Parliamentary Secretary for the Central Coast and Member for Terrigal Adam Crouch said the funding will deliver eight key initiatives, which form Phase 3 of the recovery.
“Phases 1 and 2 saw immediate support provided for the cleanup as well as funding provided to affected businesses, primary producers and not-for-profits. Phase 3 focuses on infrastructure repair, mental health initiatives, riverbank restoration and local support,” Mr Crouch said.
“In this last 18 months we’ve been hit by the triple whammy of bushfires, floods and COVID-19 so every dollar of financial support for our region does count.”
The eight key initiatives include:
- Offering financial assistance for highly impacted industries,
- Rebuilding or repairing community infrastructure,
- Providing $10,000 Rural Landholder Grants,
- Restoring flood-damaged riverbanks,
- Delivering mental health support to targeted groups,
- Restoring Jenolan Caves,
- Employing new Community Recovery Officers, and
- Supporting BlazeAid and other not-for-profit groups that help farmers.
Central Coast Council has been selected as one of the 10 highly-impacted local government areas (LGAs) to share in $4.4 million for locally-tailored recovery initiatives, coordinated by the services of a new Community Recovery Officer.
“The Community Recovery Officer role was created to support areas highly impacted by the 2019-20 Black Summer of bushfires and is now being applied to this phase of the flood recovery,” Mr Crouch said.
The new funding has been made available under shared NSW and Commonwealth Government disaster funding arrangements.
Since February 2021 there have been 9,700 NSW residents seeking direct support from local Recovery Centres, and more than 34,000 NSW residents seeking assistance from Service NSW.
Anyone who requires ongoing flood assistance, support or referrals is urged to call Service NSW on 13 77 88 or go to: www.service.nsw.gov.au/floods.