A large crowd of mostly perplexed MidCoast residents were present at Council's meeting on Wednesday 22 August. The vast majority of these residents were expressing their support for a recission motion aimed at overturning a contentious decision from Council's last meeting.
In July, by just 6 votes to 5, Council chose "Barrington Coast" as the "destination name" for the MidCoast region. After a truncated discussion last Wednesday, the recission motion was put and lost. That means this area's destination name is now officially to be the "Barrington Coast".
What is a destination name? This extract is from the Great Lakes Advocate:
Mayor, Cr David West said it was important for the community to understand the new destination name was about appealing to new visitors to the area, to support the current visitor economy.
“This does not mean we won’t continue to attract the many visitors who already come and enjoy our beautiful region, those people will continue to come here, and we will continue to welcome them,” he said.
It appears that the views of the community as a whole on this issue were not really considered to be relevant to the decision.
Barrington Tops is certainly one of the many beautiful areas of the MidCoast Council region. The Barrington River which rises in the Barrington Tops was named by Robert Dawson who from 1826 to 1828 served as the first manager of the Australian Agricultural Company. He named the river after his previous employer, the Fifth Viscount Barrington: Reverend George Barrington.
