OAKESHOTT INDEPENDENT
NORTH SHORE SEWERAGE SCHEME NOW ATTRACTS FUNDING
A further allocation of $160 million to the funding pot for country sewerage and water schemes and representations to the Minister of Water Utilities, Nathan Rees, has seen the North Shore Sewerage Scheme become eligible for funding, local MP Rob Oakeshott announced today. .
"This is good news for our area, and in particular for the North Shore. We have been lobbying for two sewerage schemes in particular, they being the Herons Creek and North Shore schemes as part of the Port Macquarie electorate. State funding for Herons Creek was approved pre-election, and it has now been confirmed that the North Shore sewerage scheme has also come on line for state funding, Mr Oakeshott said.
"It is now up to Council to complete all the pre-construction activities of relevance, and for Council then to write to the State formally requesting the subsidy. We can now progress these projects with some haste to the benefit of the local communities, Mr Oakeshott said.
Three other sewerage projects remain in the Port Macquarie-Hastings Council region, but outside the Port Macquarie electorate at Beechwood, Comboyne and Long Flat. I am unaware of the status of state subsidy for these projects, nor the stage of planning that Council is at with these projects, Mr Oakeshott said.
Projects for state funding are ranked by an Inter-Agency Prioritisation Committee, on the security of water supply, public health and environmental impacts. This means both the most urgent and most deserving projects get funding in regional NSW, Mr Oakeshott said.
"This is therefore good news. The bad news is that there is a backlog of a serious nature in the provision of sewerage infrastructure to regional NSW. To secure water supplies in regional and rural NSW, one of the best things we could see as part of a state and/or national water plan, would be major investment in this back-log of water and sewerage schemes, particularly in high growth areas such as ours. I encourage relevant state and federal water Ministers to consider these local, practical, regional water projects as part of any future water infrastructure plans, Mr Oakeshott said.
24 August 2007