City praises departing chief
GEELONG municipal planning chief Peter Bettess has quit after seven years at City Hall to set up a consultancy.
As the planning and development director’s resignation was confirmed yesterday the City of Greater Geelong lauded his achievements.
Mr Bettess was involved with others in the establishment of such groups as Enter- prise Geelong, Tourism Greater Geelong and the Bellarine and the Central Geelong Task Force.
He also played a role in the redevelopment of the former Geelong Golf Course, work on the G21 Regional Growth Plan and Implementation Plan as well as overseeing planning for municipal growth areas.
“Peter has provided sound professional advice to successive councils during a period of unprecedented growth in one of Australia’s fastest growing areas,” CoGG chief executive Kelvin Spiller said.
“He’s also made a unique contribution to our executive leadership team, and provided outstanding leadership to our planning and development division, balancing the needs of individual planning permit applicants with the City’s longer-term strategic goals for proper, thoughtful and strategic planning.
“I congratulate Peter on his impressive achievements, his extensive knowledge of planning and the law, his ability to ‘hold the line’, and wish him all the very best for the future.”
CoGG administrator chairwoman Kathy Alexander said it had been a pleasure to work with Mr Bettess.
“Peter’s contribution to the City’s impressive planning performance statistics speaks for itself,” she said.
“The municipality has experienced rapid growth — and Peter’s legacy is that Geelong has a planning framework to cater for this growth, while balancing those elements of Geelong that our community truly values.”
Meanwhile, Mr Spiller is on annual leave and investment director Brett Luxford is deputising for the council chief
A council spokesman said Mr Spiller had appointed one of the five directors as acting chief whenever he had taken annual leave.