The Business Creation & Jobs Grants are a part of a multi-pronged strategy to attract new businesses to the Copper Coast and to grow our tourism industry.

This program will be a key part of the future Economic Development and Marketing Plan. That plan is about answering two key questions;

•         What will attract people to the Copper Coast? &

•         How do we tell them about it?

The Copper Coast is a growing regional community with a strong agricultural base and healthy tourism industry.

The Council is funding through its private works for the Wallaroo Shores Development a marketing campaign to reintroduce a broader audience to the Copper Coast. To gain the maximum benefit from that investment, those resources need to be targeted. 

The plan will assess our community’s progress and our course adjusted in regards to the work undertaken following a much narrower scoped but important tourism audit that was previously undertaken.

Council has taken a number of steps to increase the tourism product on offer and this plan will incorporate a broader approach to drive other parts of the economy forward to create additional employment opportunities.

The community is starting to realise some of the benefits of the NBN, but those opportunities also need to be highlighted through this plan. We need to know what businesses to attract and what our community (and broader catchment) can support that we don’t already have. We also believe that there is missing tourism product that is likely to attract greater numbers to our community.

We are at the precipice of rapid growth with hundreds of millions of dollars of private investment in the construction and planning stages. We want to take full advantage of this opportunity and believe that investing in an appropriate planning strategy will reap greater rewards for our community.

If these guidelines are adopted, it will provide a key pillar for the consultants to develop the Economic and Marketing plan around.  We do expect the consultant to offer further suggestions for the guidelines, but their adoption at this stage will give the consultants clear direction from the Council.

The Copper Coast Council has experienced significant growth in the past 5 years in terms of new and improved infrastructure, population growth, job growth, tourism visitation and social capital – particularly in terms of leadership and collaboration.

With our new and improved infrastructure projects (including sport and recreation facilities, township CBD upgrades, new shopping precincts and development approvals for major accommodation facilities), our District is becoming more attractive as a place to work, live and play.

The Council is pivotal in driving and leading this work. In particular the work of the University of Adelaide by the late now Professor Graeme Hugo a ‘Survey of non-resident and resident ratepayers of the District, January 2012’, highlighted that a third of the non-resident population of the Copper Coast Council plan to move in their retirement years to the Copper Coast. This will add to the already ageing population of the Copper Coast Council.

This has the important implication of matching the needs and services but also significantly distorting the workforce and entrepreneurial base of the Copper Coast.

We recognise that our area is on the precipice of further potential growth and are seeking to consolidate our strategies, ideas and activities into a Strategic Economic Development Plan that will define a clear pathway to advance our future public and private investment. The development of an Economic Plan will include a number of key components including:

• an up-to-date analysis of our strengths and identification of our challenges and key strategies
• defined actions for implementation over the next 5 year period
• an Investment Attraction Strategy
• Activation Strategies and Action for key public places within the district
• Comprehensive consultation within our community and ‘test’ or ‘review’ consultation with potential investors (particularly in relation to marketing aspects)

Our future focussed plan will include defined actions to:

• Attract new industries (and or diversifying existing including manufacturing and agriculture)
• Increase and broaden our tourism attractions and will include an Events Activation chapter
• Identify the appropriate Place-making activities to further invigorate key parts of our townships to provide additional social benefits and strengthen community cohesiveness 

With defined implementation actions to advance growth and investment we anticipate job growth in the following sectors:

           construction, tourism, hospitality and retail, accommodation and disability services.

The plan will also target a $400,000 marketing investment by the Copper Coast Council to reintroduce people to the area as a place to live, visit and work in. The aim is to work with the commercial sector to obtain matching funding through partnerships to increase the overall marketing pool to closer to $800,000. This marketing campaign needs to be strategically targeted to gain the maximum long term benefit to the Copper Coast. The Economic and Marketing Plan will achieve that outcome.