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Orange City Council News
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Orange scores NRL pre-season clash
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Orange City Council has welcomed the agreement signed with the Newcastle Knights Rugby League club to stage a pre-season against the Canberra Raiders in Orange.
The match will be played just weeks before the 2016 season starts, on Saturday 20 February at Wade Park in Orange.
On top of the success of the recent A-League trial game in Orange, Orange City Council Sports & Recreation Committee chair, Cr Jason Hamling said the latest big game will be even more popular with sports fans.
“I congratulate the Knights on making the move to play one of their pre-season encounters in a regional area. It’s great for the future of the NRL in the country and Orange is close enough that I’m expecting many Knights supporters will make the trip to the central west .”The Knights will play their final trial match in Orange, as part of the NSW Mining partnership, against the Canberra Raiders on Saturday February 20.
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Work begins on re-surfacing the bypass
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The first stage of Orange City Council’s recently-announced ‘Building Better Roads’ action-plan to re-surface the entire length of the city’s northern bypass has begun.
Work on the 600 metre section of the road between Leeds Parade and Astill Drive will generally involve removing 150mm of the existing granular pavement and replacing it with hotmix asphalt. The new asphalt will be 220mm thick overall, meaning the final level of the road will be 70mm higher than it currently is.
Mayor John Davis said he was delighted to see the work getting under way.
“There’s been a very positive reaction from Orange residents since the extra road funding was announced recently,” Cr John Davis said. “People are understandably less than happy with the damage in the surface of the bypass, but I believe they’re now pleased they can look forward to this problem being fixed.”
Orange City Council Infrastructure Policy Committee chair Cr Glenn Taylor is urging local drivers to be patient while the long-awaited road-works begin.
“In the coming weeks and months there’s going to be a lot of road works happening around Orange. In this financial year the roads budget is up to $28 million. Aside from the Bypass work there are close to 40 other substantial road projects scheduled for this year ranging from short sections of road through to several blocks,” Cr Taylor said.
“While drivers are sitting at some road-works, I hope they’ll be thinking how many local roads are going to be improved because of this extra spending. But road crews will be doing all they can to minimise the delays for drivers.”
Hotmix asphalt is used to re-surface the orange bypass. During the road works on the bypass, at least one lane of the road will always be open, and traffic control staff will let passing traffic through as soon as possible. Both lanes of the road will be open for traffic at night.
“Crews will work on one side of the road at a time, and by the end of each day’s shift that section of road will re-open for traffic. Weather permitting, this section of the bypass is expected to take 2 weeks to complete.
Variable message signs are already in place on the bypass advising motorists of the project. Extra signs will also be placed on the Mitchell highway.
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Council’s ‘fitness’ not in doubt
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Orange City Council has decided to have urgent discussions with neighbouring councils to discuss the implications of yesterday’s release of the IPART report on council mergers. Last night’s (20 October) council meeting confirmed that it is willing to consider merger opportunities.
Cr John Davis has welcomed the decision by the Premier to release the report for public discussion and its assessment of Orange City Council’s finances.
“It’s good news that IPART has found Orange City Council is in good financial shape,” Cr John Davis said.
“When IPART looked closely at questions of financial sustainability, our infrastructure, our services management and efficiency, they found Orange City Council measured up to all of the NSW Government’s fitness benchmarks.”
“Despite ticking every financial sustainability, infrastructure, services management and efficiency box, when IPART looked at scale and capacity, a view open to very significant interpretation, IPART felt that Orange was unfit because it hadn’t demonstrated where a merged council could make savings up to the required benchmark level.”
“As we’ve looked at some cases in the report, it’s become clear that what was meant by ‘fitness’ was ‘volunteering to merge’. If a council or its neighbours had not proposed a merger and they hadn’t demonstrated that the option of standing alone would be good as or better, then they’ve been labelled ‘unfit’.”
“It’s disappointing, when IPART found Orange City Council was in good financial shape. It doesn’t inspire confidence when local residents are coming to the Civic Centre front counter worried, after hearing media reports that the council isn’t ‘fit’.”
Orange Civic Centre“Realistically, if you look at a map of NSW, at 280 square kilometres, Orange is an unusually small regional council, compared to Bathurst and Dubbo which were both judged to be ‘fit’ for the future.”
“It’s pretty obvious that attempts are being made to fit Orange City Council into a regional footprint.”
“We already do a lot of work for our residents and I think the NSW Government believes that could happen over a bigger geographic area. As a result, we’ve been placed in the category of councils which the NSW government may want to merge.”
“I’m looking forward to sitting down with our neighbours and talking through the options.”
“We’ve now been given until 18 November to respond before the government announces its final decision. The Local Government minister has said councils across the state will learn about their future before the end of the year.”
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No asbestos in Orange’s bypass
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Media reports this week that Orange’s northern bypass road contains asbestos are wrong.
The media release which prompted the coverage has been described as ‘scare-mongering’ by Orange mayor John Davis.
THE FACTSThere’s nothing new here :Orange’s northern bypass is built through country on the city’s north-eastern outskirts, which contains mineral deposits of naturally-occurring asbestos.
This strip of land is well-mapped and has been known about for many years.
Over those years, Orange City Council has developed a detailed management plan which sets strict guidelines for builders and any one doing construction work in that area.
Orange City Council is leading the state in how naturally occurring asbestos is managed.
The NSW Government’s WorkCover Authority has been working with Orange City Council for years as these work procedures were developed and the Authority has endorsed how the Council manages the potential risks of naturally-occurring asbestos.
Where construction activity or earth-works involves disturbing the naturally-occurring asbestos, these procedures include burying this material deep underground, and not in a place where it could be disturbed again.
Properly managed there are no health risks associated with naturally occurring asbestos in the vicinity of the northern bypass.
There’s no asbestos in the road foundations :Rocks and soil containing naturally occurring asbestos was dealt with and managed as the bypass road was built.
In very controlled circumstances, this material was buried, in line with the management plans, where it would not be disturbed again.
Asbestos was buried deep under large mounds of earth alongside the bypass that are used to deflect traffic noise away from residents.
The bypass construction project included a number of bridges. In structures such as this where there very deep foundations, the material containing asbestos was buried deep under the ground.
No naturally occurring asbestos was placed in the foundations (pavement) of the road.Removing the existing bitumen surface and re-surfacing the road with hotmix will not expose any asbestos.
