The only thing good about it was its concept. Its execution is unsightly, poorly laid out and badly done.

Get your - our - money back, Council, put up some signs and paint in an area that wasn't a problem anyway.

The area is narrow and with good enough visibility to keep things manageable. This was a bit of Council flag waving that didn't work.

Whoever laid the pavers in Cooper Street should redo it again. And if it was council then they should be sacked.

What a stuff-up this whole fiasco has been. Why wasn't it sealed properly in the first place?

This has happened before to other shires, so what made Cessnock council think it would work here?

Joel Fitzgibbon is right. 2020 was a terrible year, but we can learn from it ("Let's hope we learn from our annus horribilis", The Advertiser, 9/12).

We must learn that getting "more crude oil out of the ground" as he suggests is no longer the best path.

It pollutes not only our land and waterways but increasingly our atmosphere with greenhouse gases.

We must learn, as Mr Fitzgibbon suggests, to become more independent as a nation, less dependent on imports.

We can do this by exporting renewable energy, increasingly in demand by the world's decarbonising economies.

Over the parliamentary break, Mr Fitzgibbon should read The Million Jobs Plan by the Smart Energy Council, and then sit down with the Hunter Community Alliance of unions and environmental groups to plan for clean and sustainable jobs.

This would be a win for workers, their children, and the environment in which they live. 2021 would be an "annus bonum".