Message from the Mayor: 5 May 2023

Published on 05 May 2023

Hello, I'm John Connors, the mayor of the Dungog Shire, bringing you this week's mayoral update.  

During the week there was unfortunately some rather poor journalism in the Newcastle Herald, which led to some anxiety within the shire. The Newcastle Herald reported that only some, or appeared to report that only some councils in the Hunter had received additional funding for roads. That was incorrect. What was correct is that all of the councils in the Hunter Federal Electorate had received funding, but so had all of the non-metropolitan councils throughout New South Wales. It was funding from the federal government under the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure grant, Round 4 Part B. And under that we Dungog Council received an additional $330,000 which was a figure calculated on the LRCI proportions for each electorate and then for each council throughout Australia. So the good news is, we did receive our fair share of that funding. The bad news is the report caused some anxiety within council and within the community.  

Still on roads, roadworks continue in Dungog and East Gresford. Park Street at East Gresford, the roadworks are continuing and will be for some time. And at the top end of Hooke Street in Dungog, the roadworks continue around towards Common Road. Those roadworks are obviously causing some delay as a result in one zone only been open at a time. The works are going to take some little while on that stretch. And then, in due course, works will return to the other end – the eastern end of Hooke Street from Lord Street up to Dowling Street. And those works will involve some rectification of the drainage in that area with hopefully works that will enable water to get away more quickly in the future. Banfield Bridge and Pine Brush Road are open, with some roadworks still being carried out on the approaches to the bridge but the bridge is open and operating. And the school bus and the like are now able to travel that route. 

This weekend or today, Friday, Saturday and Sunday is the annual Tocal Field Days, to be held in Tocal and whilst the college at Tocal is in Maitland City Council area, the bulk of Tocal’s land and certainly the homestead is all within Dungog Shire. So, it's an event that the community at large looks forward to each year and certainly the traders and members of the community within the Dungog Shire certainly look forward to it. And many of the exhibitors come from within the shire and I'm sure many of those that go there to look and purchase are also from the rural activities within the Dungog Shire. So a good weekend sure will be had by all those who visit the Tocal Field Day.  

Other activities that are coming up those or throughout the shop are publicised regularly on Council’s Facebook page and on Council’s website and I encourage you all to go to those sites to see what's on throughout the shire, be it Dungog, Clarence Town Paterson, Vacy, or Gresford.  

So, with those few words, that's it for me for this week. So until next week, good luck, goodbye. 

 

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