Livingstone Shire Council

AT A GLANCE WHO: Livingstone Shire Council WHAT: The Livingstone Shire Council was established after de-amalgamation on 1 January 2014 and looks after approximately 11,776 square kilometres and has a population of more than 37,000 residents. WHERE: Yeppoon QLD, 4703 WEBSITE: livingstone.qld.gov.au sits comfortably along the subtropical Capricorn coast. As with everything in life, if there is to be prosperity, it needs to be worked for. Accordingly so, we spoke to the Mayor of Livingstone Shire himself, Bill Lud- wig, about the projects and plans that have, and will, help the town to contin- ue to flourish. But, before we go into all of that, it’s important to put some con- text around the development work. In 2008, the Shire of Livingstone merged with three of its neighbours from with- in the Capricorna region of Queens- land to form the Rockhampton Region. Namely, the City of Rockhampton, the Shire of Mount Morgan and the Shire of Fitzroy. In 2014, the Shire of Living- stone was de-amalgamated, a result of a proposal to do so in 2012, and a subsequent vote by the area’s citizens in the following year. “We’d lost six years through the amalgamation process,” says Ludwig “When we de-amalgated in 2014 we were very much playing catch up on all our projects.” Despite all the starting and stopping, Ludwig persisted, along with the council, to create and rehabil- itate within the Shire: “We were hugely impacted by Cyclone