Our 110 kilometres of coastline includes the Batemans Marine Park and 3,400 square kilometres of land. More than 80 percent of the land is either national park or state forest.
Eurobodalla Shire Council’s boundaries stretch from South Durras in the north to Wagonga inlet in the south and Nerrigundah in the west. Within this area we have three major towns, Batemans Bay, Moruya and Narooma and numerous smaller villages.
[member_desc_sub]Information about our local population[/member_desc_sub][member_desc_list] [/member_desc_list][member_desc_sub]History of local government in Eurobodalla[/member_desc_sub]Since 1844, there have been three councils in the area that is now covered by Eurobodalla Shire Council.[member_desc_sub]Our first Council[/member_desc_sub]The first council for the region linked the south coast to Braidwood and served as a single police and administrative body but did not collect rates or make any decisions which regulated the lives of local residents.
[member_desc_sub]A Municipal Council for Moruya[/member_desc_sub]In 1889, with 1236 people, Moruya had the population to apply for Municipal status as a semi-urban council. This status was granted in 1890 and included a right to collect rates. In 1905, the boundaries of local government grew under the Shires Act which divided NSW into local government shires.
While the Municipal Council continued to look after Moruya, the new Eurobodalla Shire Council – which was proclaimed by the NSW Government in 1906 – was to be responsible for a much larger area that stretched from Durras Lake in the north to Dignams Creek in the south.
[member_desc_sub]The first Eurobodalla Shire Council[/member_desc_sub]The new Shire was governed by an interim Council of public men. They were responsible for organising the Shire’s first election, including the paper supplies, the ballot boxes and the advertising and for supervising the police who verified the name of all the eligible voters. The election when it was held was a tight one, with one of the areas within the Shire won by a Councillor by a single vote.
The six new Councillors were:
[member_desc_list]
- Henry Anderson, a successful Irish-born (1859) dairy farmer from Bergalia and later Pyree near Nowra
- Samuel William Bate, a Sydney-born (1841), Central Tilba and Tuross River dairy, cattle and sheep farmer who was one of the founders of the ABC cheese factory at Central Tilba and the cheese factory at Corunna
- Edward M. Mort, a Sydney-born (1860) cheese maker who was the well-respected director of the Bodalla Company.
- Alfred Allen Shoebridge was born in Araluen in 1862 and lived around the Nelligen area. He worked as a miner, a store-keeper, a saw miller and a promoter of co-operative cheese making and was also a local agent for a steamship company.
- Henry Joseph Mallon, born in Mullenderree in 1845, was a stock dealer when he was younger and later became a beef farmer at Merricumbene on the Deua River who supplied beef to the Araluen miners and local butchers.
- Thomas Taylor, of Balmain in Sydney, was an engineer and worked as a director of the iron and wood bridge building company, Johnston and Taylor and as a Councillor and five-times Mayor of the Borough of Auburn before he retired to Narooma. He was a financial whizz who brought with him invaluable experience building roads and bridges.
Council then had to appoint a Councillor to the top role of President and Cr Edward M. Mort was unanimously elected because of his social position and business acumen.
Council’s priorities were engineering new roads and maintaining old roads, managing finances and the health of the community and gradually the Moruya Municipal Council became irrelevant. In 1913, Eurobodalla ratepayers voted to amalgamate it with the Shire. Five days after the Municipal Council met for the last time on 17 November 1913, Eurobodalla Shire Council became the sole local government authority.
[member_desc_sub]Eurobodalla Shire Council today[/member_desc_sub]Eurobodalla had a Shire President up until the new Local Government Act 1993 came into force. In 1993, Councillor Chris Vardon became the last Shire President and the first Mayor.
Prior to 1993, the title Mayor was only used in city and municipal councils, but not in shires which covered most rural and regional areas of New South Wales.
We now have nine councillors, a popularly elected Mayor and Eurobodalla Shire Council services have expanded greatly over the last 100 years.
[/member_desc][member_contact][member_address]Vulcan Street Moruya[/member_address]
PO Box 99, Moruya 2537
[member_email]council@esc.nsw.gov.au[/member_email]
[member_website]www.esc.nsw.gov.au[/member_website]
[member_phone]02 4474 1000[/member_phone]
[member_fax]02 4474 1234[/member_fax]
After Hour Emergencies: 1800 755 760
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