Hello and welcome to this week's Council Connect. Alexandria Carruthers, Councillor for C Ward, and Deputy Mayor for Dungog Shire Council here.
Just a quick update on what's going on with Council. We've got the viewing platform survey closing on Sunday. So if you haven't put your submission in and you'd like to, we'll include the link in the comments below. And just touching on maybe some misinformation that you've heard floating around, the viewing platform is not taking anything from our roads funding. That would be silly. It's a partnership that we've got with Dungog Regional Tourism and looking at other opportunities for the Shire to promote tourism and provide tourism infrastructure. So it'll be funding that we're chasing for that one, and we'll be working very closely with Dungog regional tourism to do that. So if you know of a great place that you would like to put forward as an idea that we can use for a viewing platform location, please fill out that survey. We'd love to hear from you.
Next up on the list, we have the Clarence Town Bridge works. Earthworks on the Clarence Town side are progressing well, despite encountering some very hard rock. We appreciate the community's patience with the additional noise. From Monday 28 July, a new stage of roadworks will commence. This will require the traffic lights to be relocated. On Durham Street, the lights will be moved closer to Duke Street intersection, and on Limeburners Creek Road, the lights will be repositioned near the Waterview Way intersection. These changes will enable construction of the road widening and the outbound lane from Clarence Town. So there's a bit of an update on where things are going with that, and we will continue to keep everybody updated as the project progresses, but that's where it's up to at the moment.
Third on the list, we have the Dungog Housing and Infrastructure Master Plan sessions at Vacy and Paterson. These are the last sessions. They'll be taking place on Saturday 3 August. We'll have Vacy in the morning, from 10am to 12pm at the Vacy School of Arts, and then we'll have Paterson in the afternoon from 3-5pm at the Paterson School of Arts. So not this Saturday, but next Saturday. So pop that in your diary if you haven't been along to one of those yet, come along, ask some questions, register your interest. It's really just getting everybody engaged at this stage before we dive deeply into how things will look there. So it's an opportunity to ask questions, provide your thoughts on the future, and help shape how our town will grow, and where housing and infrastructure investments should focus. The outcomes of these sorts of things are only as good as the inputs we get from the community. So please get involved. We can't say that any more than we have. Please get involved.
Next we have the Martins Creek Quarry decision. On Wednesday this week, the Land and Environment Court dismissed (yes, you heard that right!) the appeal for Daracon to expand its Martins Creek Rock Quarry. The proposed expansion would have significantly increased truck traffic through small towns like Paterson and its surrounds, and that would have meant up to 160 truck movements a day. The community and Council raised concerns about the safety and environmental impacts that would have. We all know how big a town Paterson is, so to have 160 trucks passing through it on a regular basis, it just wasn't the right fit. There was going to be no benefit there for anyone. So that's the decision that the Land and Environment Court has come to, and that's to dismiss that appeal. So from Mayor Rayward, we're very pleased with the decision handed down. Council invested a lot of time and money that we will never recoup. But we needed to do the right thing for the community, and the decision to dismiss the appeal certainly reflects this.
And finally, the nbn is visiting Dungog. nbn representatives are visiting to discuss upgrades. You might be eligible to connect to faster internet, is what they're telling us. So we're suggesting coming along to an nbn Community Information Session and having a chat with the nbn team, ask the questions that you need answered, and getting some advice from them on what that looks like for you, so that you can get the best out of your home and business internet setups with the nbn. They will be at Lovey's Grocers IGA in Dowling Street, 9am - 5pm today. Then tomorrow. They'll be at the CWA markets from 8am - 1pm. So there are a couple of information sessions that you can get along to, but I will include more details in the comments with all of that.
So that's it for this week. So just to recap, we've had an update on the viewing platforms. If you've got a location, pop those suggestions in the survey; links will be in the comments. Clarence Town Bridge, new roadworks are kicking off on Monday, 28 July. The Dungog Housing and Infrastructure Master Plan, we've got those sessions coming up next weekend, 3 August. We'll include all the details in the comment below. Please let everybody know that they're on. And then the Martins Creek Quarry Decision, Council is very much in favor of the outcome there, as we know a lot of the community is as well, and then NBN visiting Dungog.
So that's it for this week. Thanks for listening. Thanks for tuning in. Have a great weekend. And I hope that it wasn't too frosty at your place this morning. It was very frosty at mine. We are definitely in the middle of winter!
See you.
