Surely traffic lights will be required for the T-intersection from Main to Market Street. And at the roundabout on Main St and Sapphire Coast Drive. There is a lot of foot traffic crossing the road to the Medical Centre which is next door to the development. It would be much safer for people to be able to cross at a traffic light.

I don't think this development can possibly go ahead without the impact of traffic being very closely looked at.

Why is everyone not up in arms over Bega Valley Shire Council? It's incredible to think they are intending to spend over nine million dollars on council premises when they are in so much debt despite rates having been increased again.

They have had ample time to fix the Merimbula Bar, but haven't. This means our whale watching boats cannot go over the bar and with the whale season around the corner, more lost business for the boat owners and Merimbula town at a time when business is on its knees.

Nine million dollars would help alleviate those who are living in vans and tents!

Come on people. Raise your voices to call out when you see things that are inaccurate, unfair or irresponsible.

I oppose to planning department proposal regarding changing the minimum site areas for housing in the Bega Valley (BV).

I appreciate that there is a need for long term rental property. However, I disagree that this demand is related to supply.

Firstly, the infrastructure of the BV is not designed and cannot cater for large numbers of minimum wage or casual employment opportunities in the way that large cities can. The answer is then, not to turn the BV into a city with large amounts of housing, but to create more substantial job opportunities.

The influx of new residents to the BV due to high property values in cities, fires, COVID and working from home, as well as the attraction of the beauty that is living here has meant that more money is to be made by selling homes or short term holiday lets rather than long term rentals. Like everything, it's about money.

Building more homes crowded on top of one another is not necessarily going to result in more long term rentals being available, but it will 100 per cent result in developers making more money and in turn, wreck the beauty that attracts people to BV in the first place. This is a mistake that cannot be undone. Perhaps a tax on holiday lets would be more prudent?

I have five acres I would love to subdivide on Government Road, but we were never given the option to connect to the sewer, which is located directly across the road. It would seem this opportunity is only offered if you are connected to the existing sewer system. Is this something that may change?

I have a complaint about the self serve checkouts at all our big stores. Card-only machines are taking over and on these you can only use cards. There are a minimum of cash machines. Problem is with the cash machines you can also use cards, so card people take over those too. Us poor cash customers have to wait while those with cards have access to all machines.

Cash machines should be only cash because there are very few of them. Whoever put this in place is an idiot. Or is the plan to have all card machines and sack more staff?