Dubbo Regional Council will commit more than $330,000 across four years to continue the Evocities program.
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Evocities is a joint collaboration between Dubbo, Albury, Armidale, Bathurst, Orange, Tamworth and Wagga Wagga councils. It aims to promote the regional lifestyle to areas such as Sydney.
To date, Evocity councils have pumped $4.27 million into the program, as well as an additional $530,000 from the NSW government, $1.7 million from the federal government and $395,000 from corporate sponsors.
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Dubbo council voted on Monday night to continue its support of the program until the end of June 2023. In 2019/20, $80,000 will be spent on the Evocities campaign, increasing by $2000 each financial year.
Councillor Stephen Lawrence, who chaired the Economic Development, Business and Corporate Committee meeting, said he supported the campaign, and the level of market penetration it had received.
“What is harder to analyse and ascertain is how much difference a particular program is making in terms of the relocation of people and the population growth which is fundamentally what it’s about,” Cr Lawrence said.
Since launching in September 2010, 3619 new families have been relocated through the Evocities program.
However, in a report on the program, council’s director economic development and business Natasha Comber said the households could only be counted if they made direct contact with Evocities staff.
“It isn’t possible to count how many other households were inspired by an Evocities ad, found a job on Evojobs or research their city change on Evocities.com.au (or all of the above) before making the move,” Ms Comber said.
Other initiatives were also at work to encourage people to move to Dubbo, Cr Lawrence said.
“It’s positive also to be aware that other things are happening in our region in terms of pushing federal and state government to use those bigger levers to achieve population growth in a much more expansive way than it has been happening to date, and that’s particularly important in relation to skills shortages,” Cr Lawrence said.
Between September 2010 when the Evocities campaign began and September 2018, there were more than 2.4 million visits to Evojobs.com.au and almost 639,000 visits to Evocities.com.au.