Locals set to benefit from Council's free data portal

Local businesses, start-ups, investors and community groups are among many who are set to reap the benefits as Noosa Council rolls out its free data and statistics portal to the public.

The collaboration between RDA, id.services and Noosa Council means the most up-to-date data, statistics and trends for Noosa will now be available for free through Council’s website.

Noosa Council’s Senior Economic Development Advisor Carolyn Bullen said this combined dataset will make it much easier for people to navigate Noosa-specific statistics as they are gathered from various sources, and all pooled into one handy place.

“You can go straight to our site and get all the latest data estimates for Noosa from recognised sources like ABS, which has been collated on Noosa.

“It will save a lot of time and frustration for those doing research on our region.”

Users can access two different profiles: an Economic Profile, which uses 11 different datasets to build a story of Noosa’s economy, how it is changing and how it compares to other areas; and a Community Profile, which provides demographic analysis such as age, incomes, ethnicity and households in the region.

“Statistics on Noosa are widely accessed for a number of reasons.

“It could be a student researching a report, a start-up doing due diligence, a local business planning for growth, a property developer researching the area before investing here, or an organisation that is writing an award or grant submission,” Ms Bullen said.

President of Slow Food Noosa, Carolyn Winkler has already made use of the data for a current grant application she is working on to support their Snail of Approval program.

“It’s super easy to use because it has all the reputable data in one spot which is making my grant application a lot easier to collate.

“At the moment, I’m accessing the latest data on the hospitality and tourism sectors, and with the economic tools I can even look at the impact an upcoming event can have on the local economy, which is very insightful for an organisation such as ours,” Ms Winkler said.

Ms Bullen encourages all local organisations and businesses to make accessing the portal, part of their regular business practice. 

“There’s data on everything from household incomes and spending in Noosa, to jobs, demographics, property data and economic impact calculators,” Ms Bullen said.

The data can be accessed via the Business tab on Noosa Council’s website.

30 July 2019