Blue Mountains News

The first of these, which occurred at Portland on Saturday 13 August, was well attended by members of the public.

The Mayor Councillor Maree Statham and the General Manager opened the consultation, providing context for the public. Mayor Statham said, “This Council is demonstrating real leadership by looking to secure a viable future for this city.” “I was pleased to engage with and explain to the community just how complex the operations of council are. Each day Lithgow Council provides as many as 106 different services to the community. We administer a city which is twice as large as the A.C.T. The road network we maintain is more than 975 kms long!” The General Manager, Craig Butler added, “We need to not just maintain services today, but plan for the future. We need to significantly lift our investment in road maintenance and renewal because people need safe and workable roads to move around this vast city. Just as important, we need to re-position the local economy so everybody has improved opportunity for a quality local job.”

One of the options being canvassed is an increase to land rates to fund economic diversification and enhanced asset maintenance and renewal, while also maintaining current levels of service delivery. Council staff were on hand to calculate the weekly cost of such an increase for residents. Many were pleasantly surprised to hear that the average increase for residential properties would be $4.43 per week.

The Mayor commented, “Of course, people were interested to know more about the detail of what Council is proposing. But I was incredibly impressed with the level of positive feedback from people that the Council is doing the right thing by walking up to these challenges and looking to position the city and its communities for a prosperous future. I wasn’t surprised by this because we have consistently received advice, and are responding to it, that the important issues for our community are jobs and roads.”

The next public meeting is at the Union Theatre Lithgow on Saturday, 20 August, starting at 1:00pm.

For more information on the two Options for a Sustainable Lithgow visit the website here