Rural property number project
At the recent Strategy and Policy meeting of council, the committee reviewed the yearlong project to promote and encourage better, more accurate and easily identified use of the Rural Property Numbering. Whilst the RAPID (rural address property identification number) has been in use for a number of years the critical factor is that RAPID numbers must be easily identified, free from vegetation, erected on a post at your property entrance and illuminated for ease of identification at night.
During the past year there have been 70 audits completed on dairy farms all in the Amuri Basin thanks to Fire Chief Craig Ritchie, we have progressed two rights of way, and 576 property owners have purchased RAPID numbers from RTL Ltd.
Whilst the council, over the past year has taken a non-regulatory approach to this programme of work it is important to consider why we are identifying and promoting this. During the year it has been highlighted that, despite modern GPS systems, on site property number display was crucial for emergency services to locate rural addresses when responding to an emergency situation.
Over the past few weeks, I have been privileged to attend many local brigades and celebrate with them their years’ of service, these events have allowed me to reflect on how important the RAPID numbers are to you, and your community volunteers who will are providing emergency services for you.
It is without doubt that and Fire and St John services across our district are mainly serviced by volunteers and it is our duty to make certain that an event needing their services, we must make ourselves easy to find.
It is our volunteers who get out of bed, leave their work-place or family occasion when the alarm is raised to attend to us in time of emergency, it is also our duty to ensure that they can find our property as quickly as possible when time is critical.
The least we can do to support our volunteers is have the RAPID numbers visible and not waste their critical minutes to protect life and property.
My plea to you as community members is to have a serious look at your property number and answer your own question? It is highly visible both day and night, can you improve your situation to support the services who are there to help you in time of emergency?
My backing for this project is to support the network of St John and Fire and Emergency volunteers who provide the exceptional service to duty in time of emergency.