Over 220 residents attended the first public forum held by the newly formed CCC at the Golf Club last Thursday night.

Council members addressed members of the public over a series of issues concerning the Tea Gardens Hawks Nest area such as the Marine Drive foreshore development, traffic safety around Tea Gardens Public School and beach erosion at Jimmy's Beach.

Council's general manager Keith O'Leary hailed the night as a success and praised the efforts of those involved in organising the event.

"We haven't seen something like this in our shire before," Mr O'Leary said.

"It's to be applauded and it's a great way for council to communicate with the people.

"It's something that we were behind as soon as the idea was put forward."

With Tea Gardens Hawks Nest set to rival Forster Tuncurry as the stronghold of the Great Lakes Shire, Mr O'Leary said it was important that the relationship between council and residents of the community stayed healthy.

"It's difficult, this is a unique shire," he said.

"But we're always looking for ways to communicate with people.

"People want to have a say in what's happening and I think that's one of the reasons this has been so well received, because people appreciate you taking the time to update them."

Organiser of the forum and CCC president Helen Jones said the forum had alerted Tea Gardens Hawks Nest residents to a number of key issues affecting the area and shown council still had the needs of the community at heart.

"Council provided answers for all the issues we brought to them," she said.

"They were clear, basically honest and I think they helped us better understand why things are done and the way they're done.

"They'd obviously done a lot of research and they were very well-informed."

Mrs Jones said it was important that the CCC continued to work with council for the benefit of the wider community.

"We're going to review the response and commitments council has made and debrief," she said.

"Contacting council about their commitments and the status of what was committed to is the next step.

"We need to start working together to make things happen."