Boyup Brook Shire Council welcomes new CEO

The Boyup Brook Shire Council has started 2020 with a new chief executive at the helm.

Chris Smith came to the shire from the Franklin Harbour council in South Australia, having served as the chief executive there since 2015.

“I looked around and there were a number of CEO jobs going in local government and this was the pick of them,” Mr Smith said.

Some of the items on his agenda include the potential flood proofing of the town to allow development closer to the river.

I think the rivers could have more opportunity to be beautified and developed to be more of an asset.

“A lot of people are probably not aware that large tracts of Boyup Brook — down around the river and along the (Boyup) brook — are prone to flooding and that’s why they’re not developed.

“If you were to flood proof it you would then have a lot more opportunities as to what you could develop and where you could go.”

Upgrades to the efficiency of the shire’s road improvement capacity are also on the priority list.

Mr Smith hopes to draw on his previous experience to improve Boyup Brook’s attractiveness as a tourist destination.

“I’d be expecting that council will be looking to improve our attractiveness to tourism and that’s something that I played a big part in over there, and in my last two years, managed to improve year-on-year tourism, in the order of around 15 per cent a year,” he said, adding he was confident of success in his new role.

There’s challenges here, but none of them are hard for me, I’ve been around for too long to get it wrong.