Top award for Hannah

St Paul’s Anglican Grammar School’s 2017 dux Hannah Robertson-Sas was the only Gippsland student recognised at the recent Premier’s VCE Awards.

The Premier’s VCE Awards reward top performing students for outstanding academic achievements in VCE, with Hannah presented an English Study Award by Deputy Premier and Minister for Education James Merlino.

There were approximately 50,884 students who sat VCE in Victoria last year, of which approximately 43,600 did mainstream English. Hannah was one of only 18 students who received an English Study Award.

Hannah was named dux of St Paul’s after achieving an ATAR of 99.30. She is currently studying secondary teaching at Deakin University.

New staff and a dedicated planning team for large scale developments is expected to turn around a mounting backlog of planning applications lodged with Baw Baw Shire, according to planning and development director Matthew Cripps.

The number of planning applications approved within the required 60-day period dropped to just 37 per cent in March.

Reports to council reveal planning activity on a monthly basis. While performance improved in December with a rate of 71 per cent of applications approved within 60 days, the first three months of this year significantly declined.

Approval rates in January and February were 57 per cent and 39 per cent respectively.

The report for April presented last week showed applications determined within 60 days had increased to 62 per cent.

But, an expanded staff and dedicated planning teams are expected to improve application processes within the next month.

Mr Cripps said the current planning team of four staff was expected to more than double to 10 staff by the end of July when current vacancies are filled and new staff are brought on line.

Mr Cripps admitted instability in staff over the past six months had contributed to slower clearance rates of applications.

“We have been working on clearing our backlog for a while so there will be ebbs and flows until we clear it.

“The numbers are reducing slowly but there are still 20 to 30 applications on the books and it’s not desirable they are still there.

Mr Cripps said delays were caused by a number of factors including staff handling of the matters, the complexity of applications and delays in applicants providing additional information when requested.

“Some of them simply have just not progressed and that is why what we are trying to deal with as a priority because dealing with old applications brings down our percentage rate of clearances,” he said.

Four new positions will be created in the new structure which Mr Cripps said was designed to streamline processes. Mr Cripps said a number of junior planners had left the organisation in recent months to take on other opportunities, leaving a number of vacancies.

“We also have been realigning the organisation and remodelling our service model. The focus is on getting more experienced staff on the ground.

Planning staff will be divided into two teams to allow a stronger focus on statutory planning work and development planning applications.

He said six staff would be dedicated to the vast majority of planning applications rather than staff being taken away from that work to deal with more complex applications.

He said a primary focus of the new structure would allow a concierge service to focus on precinct structure planning work, large subdivisions and key economic developments.

Mr Cripps said larger applications often occupied the work of a lot of staff from pre-application stage through to construction.

“By having multi-skilled staff in that team, including a development contributions plan officers and engineers, it will speed up the process.

“We are making sure we provide a commitment to our development community and keep economic projects separate so that we can streamline the process.

“The intent is to unblock our processing time and improve the customer experience. But there is still some backlog we need to deal with before we are up and running.

Mr Cripps said the complexity of applications was increasing with larger subdivision applications.

He said larger subdivisions such as Waterford Rise and Weebar Rd, Drouin were ongoing over many years, with ongoing planning work at each stage.

“Every time they release a stage we have to do another written assessment. Whilst the number of applications is significant, the amount of work they create can be significant,” he said.

Mr Cripps said there was a lot of other work planners dealt with rather than just planning applications including providing written planning advice, secondary consent orders, liquor licensing and demolition responses.