Councillor Warren Steel thinks he has found a way to help improve Council’s financial situation, by making better use of the land it owns at Kendalls Beach.

Rather than an underutilised holiday park, he sees it as having enormous potential as a luxury resort, something he has long championed.

He has lodged a notice of motion for the 16 August Council Meeting, “That Council improve our financial situation by seeking partners to develop and lease the Kendalls Beach Holiday park, establishing a 5 star standard hotel with a particular focus on environmental friendliness.”

He sees it as something that could happen relatively quickly, given its unique location would attract a lot of interest.

“There is nowhere else where you can walk out of a hotel and be on the beach.

“If we team up with a big operator, we could say here is the land in return for a half share in the ownership.

“It would mean we would get an ongoing income, plus the benefit of all the jobs that would come.”

Kendalls is the only holiday park on land that Council owns. The others are on Crown Land.

Cllr Steel believes that proceeding with this idea would take a lot of pressure off Blue Haven residents, concerned about the possible sale of the whole of the Blue Haven operation.

“I’d like to sell of the aged care facility, but keep the independent living units, and with something like this people will realise we are not as bad off financially as they think.

“Everyone I talk to thinks it is a good idea.”

He says he has the support of other councillors.

The land at Kendalls is not on Council’s divestment portfolio list, included in its Strategic Improvement Plan.

In her response to the motion in the Business Papers, Council’s CEO Jane Stroud says while the concept may have merit it would require careful consideration and due process.

Amongst other things, the public private partnership nature of the proposal would mean it wouldn’t be something that could happen quickly.

“The process [of complying with the Office of Local Government’s Guidelines for Public Private Partnerships] is stringent and requires significant Council investment in strategic planning, options consideration, community consultation and business case development before making a submission to the Office of Local Government for a proposal,” says Ms Stroud’s report.

It later says, “As the concept stands as proposed in the Notice of Motion, staff would need to undertake much pre-planning work for the site in order to apply for a Public Private Partnership to the department, which is not resourced (human or financial) at this time.”