OPINION
Armidale Regional Council’s budget documents for the next financial year are currently on public exhibition until June 18. Public submissions by that date are encouraged.
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On May 23, at the monthly council meeting councillors will again debate (due to a rescission motion), whether ARC ratepayers should stump up $50,000 or more, for a feasibility study to assist the NERT group from Guyra in their campaign to close the rail corridor between Armidale and the Queensland border so that a 34km cycleway can be built.
This project is planned to deliver all management and asset maintenance costs to ARC ratepayers. Guyra already has a long list of bike trails (on quiet rural roads) that have not yet delivered a tourism boom.
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The rail trail, if ever built, will deliver middling views of paddocks, traffic on the New England Highway and two tomato farms. Hardly earth shattering scenery - and chilly too for much of the year!
Riders will face the prospect of deadly snakes on the trail as well as 60-degree embankments which if they fall off, will end their tumble in drainage ponds deep enough to drown them.
If your readers care to examine the 2018/19 ARC operational plan on exhibition they will not find any allocation for the rail trail study or that project at all.
As major service reviews are planned for 2018/19 and discussions about rate reviews after that - and as both Armidale and Guyra councils were deemed financially unsustainable prior to merger, I urge residents to speak up about expenditure that would appear to be far from justified given the very tough financial times around the corner.
This is my own opinion.
