Dear who ever may read this,

I am Blair, I am 15 and I am also someone in the community of Lochinvar. I have previously expressed my concern about the lack of pedestrian footpaths connecting the new housing estates with the four local schools along the New England Highway, to my local MP; Mrs. Meryl Swanson, my local Council; Maitland City Council and NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces; Rob Stokes.

Along with contacting Mrs. Swanson, I received a letter from Mr. David Evanse General Manager for the Maitland City Council. He indicated in the correspondence, dated 6/8/2021, that “the length of footpaths left to develop are 100’s of kilometres in length”.

While I accept that this is a huge task of providing hundreds of kilometres of footpaths, the Lochinvar school community would highly appreciate the consideration of you helping us get to a better and safer way of getting to school, and if you have continued to read up to here I would think you want this to change too.

Considering the New England Highway is a massive highway, and there are multiple mine workers driving along that road at all hours, while you also have two primary schools, a childcare and one high school with hardly any footpaths to all the schools, I believe without footpaths we do not enhance the whole Lochinvar community’s safety.

I started this petition in 2021, since than 2 esates have been built in the time period and nothing has happened. we are calling for action now!

Please sign this petition to make this happened, for the safety of walkers and drivers.