Boyup Brook Shire in desperate need of people

Boyup Brook Shire president Richard Walker said the need to grow the population in the town was a priority in order to address the organisation’s need to cut back on health spending losses. In the Boyup Brook 2021-22 budget, the spending on health services within the Shire ran a $461,147 deficit. In the adopted budget the total expenditure by the Shire on health services, facilities and staff totalled $1,569,527 while income for the Shire through health services was $1,108,380. Cr Walker said the Shire had explored many options to try to grow the town’s population, including reassessing the strategic planning strategy and boosting aged-care facilities in the town. “We are actually reworking the local planning strategy and then the follow on will be the local planning scheme, but it is about getting the land uses right,” he said. “So that is about increasing the number of people living in or close to the town.” Cr Walker said with a bigger population the Shire would be able to bring another doctor into the town and work on fixing some of the issues they face with their medical service. “Well at the moment yes we have only got the one doctor. We have been getting a locum in to assist now and then, but yes we need to get another doctor,” he said. “I know we have been successful in bringing people from the metropolitan area to the rural area where they are required to do certain amounts of time in country areas, but we need to find doctors that are keen to stay in the rural area.” The Boyup Brook Shire budget was adopted at a special council meeting on August 31 with a unanimous vote.