Council Works – Week ending 24 January 2020

“For the week ending 24 January, the following key works were completed by Council staff”, noted Council’s Mayor, Cr. Ray Thompson.

“Within the urban Lithgow area last week, Council staff have completed a number of water main and service repairs,” said Mayor Thompson. “The community has experienced main breaks in the areas of Queen Elizabeth Park and Main Street, adjacent to Harvey Norman. Additionally, a number of breaks have occurred in Portland and Wallerawang, with services also requiring repair in Laurence Street and Bayonet Street. In the short term, the overlying assets are temporarily repaired pending the available resources to permanently repair them. Council registers outstanding repair requirements and prioritises them accordingly.”

“In the last week Council’s rural works staff have continued their focus on catching up with outstanding maintenance works,” noted Mayor Thompson. “As a result of the recent bushfires, Council dedicated all resources at its disposal to assisting the RFS. All mechanics, machine operators and labour staff dedicated their time both during and outside of Council’s standard hours, to the bushfire effort. The unfortunate downside of this however is the backlog of maintenance requests that now require action. This last week, a crew of staff have been in Glen Alice seeing to the repair of bitumen seals in this area. Also, staff have been in Hartley performing maintenance grades as well as drainage repairs, alongside the required capital works projects which commenced in late 2019.”

“I mentioned earlier, the efforts Council staff in assisting with the bushfire effort. While there have been delays to some essential Council services during this time, I feel that it is important to explain why,” said Mayor Thompson. “Since mid-November, Council have been allocating resources to the firefighting effort with staff in most instances working around the clock. Council’s mechanics had the responsibility of maintaining all RFS vehicles that worked in the area. Our water trucks and drivers worked persistently filling RFS tankers on-site and continue to provide potable water deliveries to fire-affected residents. Our heavy machines and operators worked to maintain fire trails and other public assets, many of which are managed externally of Council. Also, operational staff manned road closures, opened Council facilities to provide for residents in need and continue to work felling trees, repairing roads and reinstating damaged public assets. While this has caused some delay to our day-to-day public infrastructure responsibilities, it goes without saying that Council and its staff never questioned their responsibilities to our community and their outstanding efforts have been critical in defending our community against this natural disaster,” said Mayor Thompson. “However, Council will work to prioritise and action outstanding maintenance requests and the patience of the community is appreciated.”