The South West is the most popular regional tourist destination in Western Australia. 
Buy local and support your community
Expect to hear that message more and more as the South West Development Commission and Bunbury Chamber of Commerce and Industries team up over the coming months to encourage people to consider buying local when they go to make a purchase.
We need people to get behind our buy local campaign and invest
in the Bunbury and South West communities where possible. We can
only benefit from supporting each other.
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Yesterday the South West Development Commission hosted a seminar designed to get people thinking about how local town centres and tourist areas can be improved for pedestrians.
Attendees at the seminar in Bunbury heard from a range of experts, and discovered how making areas such as central business districts more pedestrian-friendly can bring economic and health benefits.
I am pleased to say Bunbury is advanced in planning for a
pedestrian-friendly town centre, with the SWDC and City of Bunbury
having previously jointly commissioned a report designed to guide
Bunbury's transformation into a more pedestrian-friendly
city.
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The trial of a new bushfire warning system invented by Yallingup man Ray Datodi was launched earlier this month.
And though the SWDC-supported trial of Sentinel Alert will be carried out in Yallingup and Jalbarragup, it does have a Bunbury connection.
The warning system was developed with the aid of Bunbury company CipherTel.
Using a combination of satellite and wireless technologies, the unique Sentinel Alert system enables individual household alarms encoded with GPS to be activated by authorities.
It has been designed to work alongside existing emergency warning systems and has the potential to be used in a variety of emergency situations.
Don Punch
South West Development Commission CEO
February 2011
