COUNCIL faces a few challenges as it looks to manage ongoing flying fox issues along the Peel River.
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Residents from Hayne St – near the King George V Ave flying fox camp – spoke in support of Tamworth Regional Council’s (TRC) blueprint to shift the bats, as council puts the plan on public exhibition to gauge the community’s thoughts.
Funding was the biggest challenge identified by council manager of regulatory services, Ross Briggs, who said the overall cost could be around $200,000.
“You wouldn’t get away with much less than $200,000 for what’s planned in there,” Mr Briggs said.
“And that’s why we’re looking at sourcing grant funding as much as possible, but we do want the community’s input into this.”
Council recently received a $50,000 grant from the NSW government to help with managing the bats, which Mr Briggs said would “help to do some of the works, but it certainly won’t cover a lot of the works”.
Mr Briggs said the current plan involved “thinning out habitat" near King George V Ave, removing “weed species and non-native along that section and encouraging the flying foxes to move down to that other camp”.
“At the same time, removing roosting habitat for the Bicentennial Park camp so they stay in that little avenue of space where the Goonoo Goonoo Creek and Peel River meet,” he said.
The public exhibition of the plan is hoped to find a way forward that pleases the community and councillors, so when funding becomes available, council has management plan ready to go, Mr Briggs said.
Hayne St residents Peter Prisk and Brian Harris supported the removal of non-natives on the river near their properties.
Mr Prisk has lived in the area for 29 years and said the “noise and the smell” of the bats when the population was at its peak was intolerable.
“I certainly feel that getting rid of non-native vegetation along the river is a good move,” he said.
But the property owner said “there was no magic solution” to the issue.