Browns Gap Road

Council’s continued response to the effects of natural disaster

Council submits application for Special Rate Variation to IPART to secure the future of Lithgow.

Lithgow City Council has submitted its application to increase land rates to the Independent Planning and Regulatory Tribunal for independent review.

Lithgow City Council Mayor, Maree Statham commented “This is a major step towards maintaining the city’s roads and other infrastructure, growing the number and choice of work related positions in the local economy and improving services for the whole community.”

The overall income from land rates is proposed to increase by 45.7% (including 3.7% rate peg). Council has committed to limiting any increase in the residential, farming and business (general) rating categories to 27.7% (including the 3.7% rate peg) with the balance of the increase to be levied against the business power generation sub-category, mining category and a new quarrying business sub-category or sub-categories.

Lithgow City Council has expressed frustration at the slow pace of a government agency to repair subsidence which has forced the closure of Browns Gap Road. Underground mine workings next to the road have threatened the stability of the road above. The Council has been pushing for Subsidence Advisory NSW, a department of the NSW Government, to respond more quickly with their restoration works.

Council has studied the road embankment conditions as they have been affected by the considerable rainfall across the city . Three hazards were identified. These hazards pose a large risk to road users.

In order of risk significance, the first identified hazard is a sinkhole within the road reserve which is related to mine workings below the road. The second hazard, which cannot acted on until the first is resolved, is a downslope tension crack which is approximately 20 metres long, 1 metre deep and 0.5 metres wide. The last identified hazard is a joint/ tension crack, estimated to be in excess of 50 metres in length and 0.5m in width) in the rock outcrops high above the road surface.

The Council is readying for their work to commence as soon as Subsidence Advisory NSW repair the mine subsidence. A slope risk assessment and remediation plans are being developed. These plans will also establish the safety requirements so workers can safely access the site for mapping and rock scaling the frail embankments.

Until these hazards are resolved, at least in part through the rehabilitation of the mine subsidence, a road closure is the only method available to reduce risk to motorists to an acceptable level. The Council remains committed to re-opening the road.

“I am confident this proposal will make a big and positive difference to this local government area. We need to significantly transform the local economy because mining and power generation will reduce in output over time. We need more jobs in sectors that will exist well into the future. The community has also asked us to increase spending up to the real cost of maintaining community assets (especially roads) and services. A maintenance and renewal backlog has been created because of damage from continuous storms and a lack of available funds. This legacy cannot be avoided for future generations to pay for. These are the key things that we have heard time and time again from the community during our extensive consultation program” said Mayor Maree Statham.

The Council’s General Manager, Craig Butler highlighted “We are acutely aware that some residents do experience financial hardship. It was very important to the Council that this be accounted for. For this reason, the Council specifically limited the increase in the residential, farming and business (general) rating categories to 27.7% (including the 3.7% rate peg). Also, the pensioner rate concession was increased by $50, to $300 per annum, commencing from the 2023/24 financial year.”

Lithgow Council is one of 17 Council’s to notify IPART its intention to apply for a special rate variation. Council’s application has now been submitted to IPART and is available to view on www.ourplaceourfuture. lithgow.com.

IPART will soon place the application on public exhibition and call for submissions from the public. Submissions must be made online using the IPART Submission form. Council will be notified of the outcome of the application in May 2023.

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Heritage Matters

Pubs for Us

What my mate Mick, the Sage of Wisemain’s Creek, likes about Bathurst is The Pubs. He’s not a coffee person, but I am, and he particularly likes a pub crawl which he can do on foot in our city, so Plan B works for him OK. All twelve of our city pubs are different and every one is a heritage building – what other city can say that? So, on every argument Mick says save the pubs.

Mind you we used to have a lot more pubs and a lot less people, so what does that say? But some of the historic buildings that were pubs still stand and have been adaptively re-used for other purposes. The wonderful Royal Hotel in William Street is probably the best example –fallen into disarray over fifteen years of vacant neglect, and about to be bulldozed as an eyesore in the 1990’s, it was saved and reinstated by a visionary, and we should be ever grateful for his leadership. One man’s eyesore is another’s vision perhaps?

We did lose our brewery on the Dairy Farmers site many years ago - Walkers brewery operated there from 1895 to 1926, but despite

Leo, Roving Reporter

Report from: BMEC Story filed: In the footlights

Hi people. It’s Leo here. This week is show week for the Pirates of Penzance musical that I am in. Fun fact: so many fictional pirate characters speak with a Cornish accent because during the Golden Age of Piracy, in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, many English pirates came from this region like Bristol, Devon, and Cornwall. Penzance is in Cornwall near the towns of Mousehole, Boscean, Porthcurno, Zenor, Relubbus, Raginnis, Mulfra, Crowles and Lands End to name a few. One of my favourite all time movies is Band of Pirates but I am not sure if any of these pirates are from Cornwall. Anyway, come and see the show this week at BMEC - it’s a comedy!

Until next time

Local Artists, Makers and Producers work For Sale.

Art and Sculpture on Exhibition, Information about The Foundations Development everything the heritage Tower remains (see pic), and we need a visionary to adaptively reuse it in a creative innovative way. However not all is lost, we do now have a new micro brewery, Reckless, in the heritage listed Crago Mill, and Fish River Valley Brewing at historic Locksley. We like Ian’s Cosmo brewing too. Mick says, is that good news or what?

Thought of the week …

“Our thanks as a heritage city should go to the publicans who look after such an important element of Bathurst’s heritage” (and by the way boys do me and Mick get free beers for the plugs?)” by a humble heritage advocate February 2023 column #270

Crazy Hat Day is the theme for the Hoskins Fete which is being held on Saturday 25th February from 9am to 1pm. The fete is a major fundraiser for the parish and this year we have been overwhelmed by support from local businesses and community groups, who have donated goods and vouchers for Crazy Hat Day prizes and the raffle. As result there will be two monster raffles with great prizes for 1st to 6th place in each.

The Lithgow Lions BBQ will be selling delicious egg and bacon rolls, sausage and steak sandwiches and soft drinks from 9am. Enjoy a coffee from the Buzz Café or tea and scones or sandwiches from the Devonshire Café.

Check out the stalls selling cakes, plants, books and jams. Browse through the bric-abrac, furniture and other goods on the white elephant stall. The Nemo jumping castle and face painting will keep the young ones busy.

Entertainment will include the very talented Highland dancers and the ever-popular Lithgow City Band.

For the younger ones there will be facepainting and a jumping castle. Come along and join in the fun of the fete, wear a crazy hat and you might even win a prize for the best hat.