Message from the Mayor: 14 June 2024

Published on 14 June 2024

Hello I'm John Connors, the Mayor of the Dungog shire bringing you this week's Mayoral message.

Council meets for its June meeting next Wednesday night at 6pm. As usual the meeting will be live streamed on Facebook and of course, members of the public are welcome to come to the Council Chamber and sit in on the proceedings.

There'll be a further meeting later in June, an extraordinary meeting, to deal with and hopefully adopt the budget for the forthcoming financial year, but next Wednesday is the ordinary monthly council meeting.

There are currently vacancies on the Vacy Sportsground section 355 committee and anybody interested in nominating for a position there should go to the Council's website where the forms are available and complete them online. It'll then be considered by the committee and council in due course, but the committee is very active in managing the Vacy Sportsground and it looks forward to filling the vacancies that currently exist in its numbers. So, I urge members of that community to think about giving some time to the management of the sportsground.

During the week, there's been a couple of somewhat thoughtless posts on Facebook. Some might say that a lot of posts on Facebook are thoughtless, but there's been comment made initially about the suggestion that the police force will no longer be manning the police stations in Muswellbrook or East Gresford. That's totally untrue. There are two police residences in Dungog and one of them is undergoing repair. But there is, I'm told, no intention whatsoever to remove either of the police officers from Dungog. Similarly in East Gresford, the police residents there has been undergoing repair for some time but the police officer has continued to be based at East Gresford whilst living in other accommodation. Those works are almost complete and then he and his family will return to live in the residence at East Gresford.

It's quite unhelpful for people, particularly people who in my opinion should know better, to post those sort of statements on Facebook without checking. It's not very difficult to find out what the truth is. But to post carelessly or otherwise, statements of that nature, it only creates anxiety in sections of the community quite unnecessarily.

There was a further incidence of a similar type of behavior with respect to subdivisions in the shire. The suggestion being made was that council was not approving subdivisions within the Dungog shire. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are currently 140 blocks of land before Council for approval. That land stretches right throughout the shire, Dungog where there are 91 blocks in one development awaiting approval and waiting on the applicant to lodge further information, Clarence Town where there's a six-lot subdivision by a developer and there are other smaller subdivisions around Clarence Town, Paterson, Vacy where a subdivision has recently been completed and I understand developers are contemplating further development in that area. And of course Gresford and East Gresford. So to suggest that the council is not supportive of subdivision is just nonsense and it would only take a glance at the business paper for next Wednesday night to see that it is a nonsense.

So I urge for those who wish to be seen in an authoritative way on Facebook that they might check their facts before they go posting what appears to be authoritative statements.

The roadworks throughout the shire continue, and of course Durham Road in between Gresford and East Gresford the works there continue, and continue to draw complaints.

The works are proceeding I'm instructed as rapidly they can. There's been wet weather of course, which is unfortunately delayed those works but they were never intended for completion until July as I understand it. But there may well be some delay due to the weather that we have had in recent times. But I ask that people be a little patient. Yes there are stoplights and yes they require people to wait for a while. But if one chose to live just half an hour down the road at Maitland, then stoplights would be a fact of everyday life no matter where you went. To have them for a relatively short period of time on Durham Rd, I don't think is unreasonable to get the result that will ultimately be obtained in a far, far better road. So I just urge a little bit of tolerance on the part of road users and residents in that area.

Other road works, Stroud Hill the works there are continuing at a rapid pace and there's traffic control on that road as well. Queen Street in Clarence Town should be sealed this coming week weather permitting.

The other works of course, continue at pace right throughout the shire and I understand that tenders will shortly be called for further sections of work on Clarence Town Rd. So the works will continue at a pace right throughout the next financial year and hopefully the one thereafter. But after that, it will be very dependent upon what might come in government grants in the future.

So that's it for me for this week. Until next week, goodbye and good luck.