scone.com.auMain Street Side Show
WITH only $11,000 allotted in the budget, the Council plans for the Murrurundi town centre is just a cynical exercise believes local businessman Peter Carlin.
The main street of Murrurundi.
“This is about the fifth plan they have come up with in the nine years I have been here and nothing happens with them,” said Mr Carlin.
“If you go to their budget you’ll see that they have allocated $11,000 for this year, nothing for next year and nothing for the next five years,” he said.
“I think it’s just part of their local government responsibilities to be seen to be consulting with the community, but it goes nowhere,” he said.
“If you look at the strategic plan for the whole of the Shire you’ll get the distinct impression that what they are saying is Scone will grow and the rest will wither on the vine,” Peter Carlin said.
However, Cheryl Armond a Scone business woman, has been on the Scone street committee for the past five years and said she is disgusted by the way Council has behaved.
“They are going to do the main street over ten years in the budget and I said, ‘well it’s going to be outdated by the time we finish’,” said Mrs Armond.
“We’d make motions, have it seconded and one of the guys on the Council was sitting next to me and he said ‘well I can change that anytime we want to’,” she said.
“You can’t just ‘unpass’ something that is already done, we were given the position, we went in and voted on everything, minutes were taken, everything was seconded and a vote on top of that and that’s the right way to conduct a meeting and then they are changing it,” she said.
“Council workers have more power than what a committee does,” she said.
“We were all business people, everybody is working and committing our time and it was going nowhere,” she said.
“I just gave up and a few of the others left, nothing has been properly done.
“I haven’t been to a meeting with the new Mayor, I haven’t even met the Mayor, not once.
“I think there are only two or three of us left on the committee,” she said.
“What is the use of the committee? Why waste everybody’s time in the town if you’re not going to do anything?” Cheryl Armond questioned.
Mr Carlin said he believed the Upper Hunter Shire Council lacked vision.
“In contrast the Muswellbrook Shire Council is releasing a plan that will take them through to 2025, I mean that is vision, that is forward thinking, we don’t need the talk fest to make the community feel good, the community would feel much better if they just did something they said they were going to do,” said Mr Carlin.
Mayor Wayne Bedggood was unavailable to explain Council’s position.
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