At her Molesworth Street hair and make-up salon, Lazuli and Co. director Peta Tillett loves innovating with her hair colours and styling.

But now, her creative innovation has taken a giant leap forward after she received a Flood Ready Grant from Lismore City Council.

Read more local news: New general manager on the way to Lismore Council



Her business was one of 15 flood affected Lismore businesses which received a grant from the $250,000 program, funded by the NSW Government. 

Peta's business is located in a building that backs on to the river - so now the funding allows her to quickly move her hair salon’s workstations and products when the river threatens.

Innovation

To do this, Peta had to get innovative with her hair and make-up furniture, creating a portable workstation that can be wheeled away to safer height.

When water entered the premises in 2017, everything was destroyed including mirrors, work benches, valuable stock and power points.

Peta used the grant to employ a fabricator who helped her build a stylish and convenient mobile workstation.

“I applied for this grant because it was important to ensure we can move valuable items and stock to safer ground much faster and keep them safe from damage. This will allow us to trade again much sooner,” she said.

“Our portable workstations not only look good, they are effective with our day-to-day tasks and we can move them around and reshape the room easily for any training events we host, but of course move them to safety if a flood were to occur again.”

Peta also used the grant to install new shelving and storage space higher up to protect expensive stock and items, elevate power points to a safer height and repair and paint walls.

“Another priority for us is managing our expensive range of stock and cosmetic range, and the new shelving allows us to store these items much higher in a safer location,” she said.

“Ensuring our workstations and stock remain safe means we can resume trading much faster.”

Under the competitive Flood Ready program, businesses were required to submit their proposed projects to an independent panel which determined the successful recipients.

Council’s Manager of Economic Development Tina Irish said the program was designed to help local businesses which contribute so much to our local and regional economy to recover promptly from future flooding. 

“It is crucially important that we support and encourage our business community to continue to provide local jobs for local people,” she said.

Read more local news: Students ready to compete for the NAIDOC Cup at Kadina