Dear all,

Last Monday it was reported that the two grants that had been allocated to Armidale and Glen Innes councils were withdrawn by the two funding agencies i.e. BLER and NEMA.  Print, electronic, radio, TV and social media reported this fiasco widely.  Both mayors gave their take on the withdrawal of grants, reasons and impact on the communities.  Mayor Coupland put the blame on the delays caused by NEMA and said that it took 13 months to give a decision.  He did not take any responsibility for the outcome.  Instead he said that it is not in his DNA to back down and in fact the council has applied for another 21 million from the federal Regional Precincts and Participation program.

There are several concerning aspects about this hard-headed approach:

To my knowledge the councillors or the rate payers and residents have not been given details of the 21m grant application. This raises an issue about transparency in decision making.
According to the business paper in April 2024 meeting there was a report and a motion under Rail Trail. It listed another grant application for 1.3m with a co-payment of a similar amount from the council. This is while there is a previously passed motion stating that there should not be net cost to the council from rail trail?

Transport for NSW(TFNSW) is currently seeking submissions for the Strategic integrated Regional Transport plan for New England-Northwest. The plan is to be completed by the end of 2025. Why doesn't both councils make submissions to this planning process and get the rail trail plan included in the regional plan so that it gains legitimacy?

Alternatively, why are the two councils interested only in active transport in their future plans for the LG areas rather than the full range of transport options including air, road, rail?  In my view, to focus solely on a rail trail is a very narrow way of visualising transport needs of the LG areas for the next 20 years.

Minister Jenny Aitchison announced a 10-year plan for regional rail renewal last month. I understand it covers Country Rail Network (operational and non-operational). If the rail trail plans get approval or further grants, isn't it putting the cart before the horse?

Why is it that ARC is not willing to consider other plans for the future use of northern rail corridor?  e.g. NERI plan to operate heritage trains or Plans by businessman David Peters to use it for freight. Some of us have sent submissions to NSW freight review indicating the importance of this rail line for freight especially given the problems faced by Inland rail project north of Parkes.

The sensible thing to do is to reflect on the reasons why the two councils did not succeed in getting approval for re-purposing the rail trail plans rather than blaming funding agencies. Did the two councils fail to meet certain requirements and targets?   Did the funding agencies dislike the reduced lengths of two rail trails for the same amount of money allocated for longer sections earlier? Does this fiasco reflect a degree of  incompetence on the part of two councils?

As there are new councils in place the right thing to do is to discuss this failed rail trail plan with councils by taking community opposition into account and come to an agreement about the way forward.  Even better is for the mayors to call a round table discussion of various stakeholders, identify common ground and develop a revised plan for a rail or bike trail (with or without using the rail corridor).  Continuing with the highly contested and failed rail trail plan can only bring more disappointments for the respective councils and communities.  "United we win and divided we fail".  Unfortunately, mayor Coupland believes calling such a round table is premature.

In my view it is highly unlikely that any government will support the rail trail plan in its current configurations.  Either it has to be built off-formation (without removing the rail line) or it needs to be built using sdrvice or parallel roads connecting Armidale, Guyra, Ben Lomond etc. Though it may be somewhat expensive, such a plan can bring divided community together.  If a plan for this is submitted to the governments, as there will be strong community support, it is likely to succeed in securing funding.  Wiser councillors need to counsel both mayors to change the tack and listen to these alternatives rather than try to be misakenly believe that they can achieve the impossible.