These are a great bunch of community minded people and to donate this amount of money to a worthy cause is just fantastic.

We held the heats of our annual Mayoral High School Debate last Wednesday and I have to say, it is one of the highlights of the year for me. Students continue to impress me with their confidence and courage to get up and speak in front of a crowd of people.

Mount View High went up against Kurri Kurri High School in the heats to debate that ‘money motivates us more than any other factor’ while St Philips Christian College and Cessnock High School debated that ‘video surveillance is an invasion of our privacy’.

While the debating game was strong for all teams, it will be St Philips Christian College and Mount View High who will compete in the final today debating that ‘Australia would be more effectively governed without a Senate’ and I wish both teams the best of luck.

We received a welcome boost for Hunter Valley Wine Country recently, with the news we have been allocated $1.25 million under the Building Better Regions Fund for a $2.5 million tourism signage implementation project.

This exciting project involves implementing new signage across the Cessnock local government area (LGA), including information bays, city gateway signs, precinct and directional signage. I am proud of Council staff who continue to apply for and win grants to benefit our region and this project will be the perfect opportunity to progress the new signage strategies Council has in place. 

While I’m on the topic of funding, there is $50 million up for grabs under the 2017/18 Resources for Regions program and Council has decided to put six projects forward for consideration. The projects include the Branxton to Greta Cycleway; Cessnock to Kurri Kurri-HEX Cycleway; Bridges Hill, Convent Hill and East End Oval Upgrade; Cessnock Airport Upgrade; Stage 2 of the Cessnock CBD Revitalisation; and the replacement of Abbotsford Street Bridge.

It was also announced we will receive $1.49 million under the Roads to Recovery program to complete 11 projects across the region. This is yet another welcome boost to achieve safer roads and bridges for our community.

On a more serious note, councils of the Hunter Region, including Cessnock City Council, are urging the State Government to delay the introduction of flawed changes to biodiversity conservation legislation.

While we originally welcomed the opportunity to comment on the proposed changes, a review has revealed that rather than maintaining and enhancing our environment, the package would contribute to undermining the hard-won protections our communities have called for.

We lodged a detailed submission pointing out the many weaknesses in the State Government’s approach and for the sake of regions across the state; we hope they listen to our concerns.  

I am certainly looking forward to the 2017 Spring Awakening event, which is taking place on Friday, September 8. The event will kick off with the popular lantern parade and I encourage everyone in the community to come down to the Cessnock Performing Arts Centre at 5pm on the day to join the dazzling procession of lanterns to the TAFE grounds.

As always, this is shaping up to be a fun-filled family-friendly evening of delicious food, fire displays, live music, roving performers, creative workshops and more.

Finally, I would like to let the community know that Council’s after hours emergency contact number is now the same as Council’s main number. If you have any issues that need urgent attention after hours, please call 4993 4100.