Council meeting update - 22 March, 2022

Tuesday 22 March, 2022

Here is an overview of outcomes from tonight’s Ordinary Meeting:

 Councillors have tonight unanimously supported a motion from Cr Stephen Mears calling on the NSW Government to release a range of information about the proposed new Dungowan Dam project. In his motion, Cr Mears said: “The proposal to build a new Dungowan Dam is of significant interest to our local community and there remains very little information available to provide our residents . . . and as a Council we should be advocating to the State Government to have that information released as soon as possible.” His motion called for: (i) Details of the inputs that have been considered as part of the development of the cost v benefit analysis; (ii) impacts and/or costs to existing water users that access supply from the current Dungowan Dam and associated pipeline; and (iii) the estimated cost of water to Tamworth Regional Council and other users that will be sourced from the proposed new Dungowan Dam. Three people formally addressed Councillors in support of the motion during the community consultation part of the meeting.

 Councillors decided to waive all fees associated with the 2022 Northern Inland Academy of Sport’s staging of the National Primary Games in Tamworth. The two-day event in July is expected to draw more than 3,000 athletes and accompanying spectators. Financial modelling shows it will bring an economic benefit of $906,000 to our region. Tamworth Regional Mayor Russell Webb said waiving $8,000 in fees for such a boost to the local economy was a sound financial decision. “It will be a great opportunity to showcase Tamworth’s ability to host major sporting events and to promote participation in grass roots sport,” he said.

 Councillors agreed to make a submission objecting to IPART’s draft review of Domestic Waste Charges which suggests a regulation of waste charges similar to the rate peg may be applied. They also decided to write to the Minister for Local Government, requesting that “the delegation to IPART is removed in relation to approving special rate variations and minimum rates, and the function of varying annual domestic waste management changes”. The letter will give a number of reasons for the request including that “applying a blanket approach such as a waste peg will ignore several key factors that may be considered unique to each LGA”.

For more information, see the full reports at www.tamworth.nsw.gov.au/business-papers

Watch the video report at www.facebook.com/TamworthRegionalCouncil