New council appointment to take care of business

Sharon Webb

Dr Bruce Williams has been appointed acting manager of business and economic recovery at Meander Valley Council to replace Neil Grose who resigned suddenly in February this year, just nine months into a two year appointment created to boost business in the Meander Valley post-COVID.

Dr Williams was formerly senior economic adviser at Launceston City Council for almost nine years and has a PhD in plant pathology from Latrobe University.

In early September he said he had almost completed two three month appointments with Meander Valley Council and hoped for a third.

Dr Williams’ LinkedIn page lists his professional experience as including chair of Rural Business Tasmania, regional manager of Housing Industry Association and CEO of the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association.

Dr Williams’ paper to the 2019 Northern Tasmanian Development Corporation’s population symposium advocated population growth for northern Tasmania.

‘Northern Tasmania Region population growth is forecast to be 3,168 people over next 25 years, a 0.1 per cent growth rate. This is among the lowest population growth in Australia,’ he said.

‘But all of the evidence suggests that a business as usual approach to population growth will have a very poor long term outcome for our people and our community.’.

Dr Williams said that the Northern Tasmanian Population Taskforce regional target was 1.2 per cent per year or 16,000 people over 10 years. 

‘But to a range of investors our population is currently 6,000 people below the threshold for attractiveness as identified by the coordinator general.’