Jan-Claire Wisdom

2014 candidate for Adelaide Hills Council.
Heritage survey responses.

1. What do you think Council's role is in protecting and conserving heritage?
   Councils need to engage with their local communities to identify and prioritise heritage issues and infrastructure, and be cognisant of this input with regard to the production of their individual district development plans, asset maintenance, improvement and divestment, specific heritage projects, and provide support (in-kind, facilitation or financial) to local historical societies where beneficial to both local and the wider district communities.

2. What measures and incentives do you support to protect and conserve local heritage?
   See above.

3. What is the most important heritage protection issue in your local government area?
   Our Council is working in partnership with neighbouring Councils and local universities to prepare and promote a bid for World Heritage Listing of the area as a 'working agrarian community'. This promises not only to assist preservation of a traditional working community but seeks also to add value to primary production as a form of high-profile branding and attract cultural tourists to the area. It is not a protection exercise in a bureaucratic sense.

4. What policies and programs will you advocate to protect and conserve heritage in your local area?
   See above for an area-wide initiative. At the local level our Council has encouraged/facilitated/funded a number of cultural heritage initiatives in particular to assist a range of communities to engage with preservation of infrastructure and memorabilia at a very local level. In addition as a Member of the State Libraries Board, I see heritage collections as a critical way to preserve South Australiana from both a local and State perspective.

5. Do you support local Councils retaining development approval powers for projects over $3m in value?
   It depends on the type of project. The question does not identify any particular heritage aspect. Certainly Councils should be treated as key stakeholders and their input seriously considered. If they have not retained development approval then projects that are seriously at variance with a Council's own Development Plan must be able to be challenged through a robust appeal process.

6. Do you have any other thoughts about the protection of heritage in your Council area?
   I think a key role for Council is to act as an information/community facilitator to assist local communities to connect with each other so that they can draw on each others experience to help them help themselves tackle heritage issues. It's not always about funding or central direction.