View from Southampton Beach in the summer of 2021. (Matt Hermiz/Bayshore Broadcasting News)
Saugeen Shores Mayor Luke Charbonneau says the town is prepared to accommodate continued growth in the community, after census data confirmed it as the fastest growing municipality in Bruce County.
Recently Statistics Canada released population data from Census 2021, and Grey Bruce municipalities all saw varying degrees of growth.
Among Bruce County municipalities, Saugeen Shores saw its population rise at the fastest rate. It increased by 16 per cent to 15,908 residents in 2021, up from 13,715 in the previous census period.
“People want to live here and to be honest it is growth we have seen coming for a long time and we have been making plans to accommodate it for at least a couple of decades now and that is part of why we are experiencing the growth because we are prepared for it. So it doesn’t come as a surprise but it certainly is gratifying because it is a good indicator that we are a good community with a high quality of life and a place were people want to live,” says Charbonneau.
Charbonneau says they expect the community to continue to grow and they are always planning to accommodate more people in the community, including expansions to the local water treatment and road infrastructure.
The Saugeen Shores mayor says this also includes making upgrades to the existing recreation facility, which he says they are working on and making plans for.
“It is a continuous thing, I think sometimes people have a look at a new subdivision going in or a new apartment building getting built and think that the idea was only conceived of in the last few months but in fact, the municipality and local developers have been thinking about these things for years and years, decades even, building the appropriate water treatment plants, you name it to accommodate all these things. So we are always planning and we are still planning and we do expect to continue to be the fastest growing community in the county,” says Charbonneau.
Charbonneau says there are a few factors that led to Saugeen Shores to become one of the fastest growing communities, including having Bruce Power in the area who has shown themselves to be a major employer.
He also attributes the growth of Saugeen Shores as being an attractive place to live.
“We have got retirees and folks moving here who are not related to the nuclear sector but are more closely related to the tourism sector who want to be here, and of course in the last couple of years the pandemic has led a lot of people to realize that they can work remotely and evaluate where they want to do that remote work from,” says Charbonneau.
Charbonneau adds it is not just Saugeen Shores that is growing, other areas in Bruce County have experienced it as well, and it demonstrates the success the region has gone through.