Unfortunately the answer is NO!
It has been some time since we’ve communicated with you and that’s because there hasn’t been much to say.
On 15 February Councillors had their first Council meeting since they elected the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and appointed Councillor representatives to various Committees. Some of our Committee members watched the proceedings via Live Stream. We were favourably impressed by the chairmanship of the new Mayor, Jeff Pettett, as he handled the large agenda very competently. All Councillors appeared to be heard and had ample time to ask questions and say what they wanted to. The behaviour of the Councillors was very businesslike and respectful. We are pleased to note that this behaviour is much more conducive to a cohesive and productive Council than some of the performances we witnessed in the previous term. We compliment all Councillors and hope that it continues.
While there were no agenda items directly related to the implementation of the Hub project at that meeting, there were some references to funding in documents related to agenda items. These are of note and interest to our community.
GB5: “Council’s investment Portfolio performance for December 2021.” and Note at foot of this item ” *** During December 2021, Council received a $9.8M grant from Transport NSW for Lindfield Village Hub Car Park. As part of the Grant’s terms and conditions Council is required to keep the funds in an independent at call account for audit purposes.”
GB19: “The Ku-ring-gai Long Term Financial Plan and the Delivery and Operational Program 2018-2021 and Operational Plan 2020-2021 identify projects which are to be funded from asset sales, including:
major town centre projects such as Lindfield Village Hub and Turramurra Hub;”
We assume, but don’t know of course, whether the GB19 item means that they will now use some of the proceeds from the sale of the current library site to help fund the Hub project. Support Lindfield and the community at large have been lobbying for that to happen for years.
Unfortunately, we have no information about the status of the project or anything resembling a timeline. On 30 January we wrote to all Councillors with some suggestions for next steps. To date we have had no replies from any of the Councillors. None of the Councillors has reached out to us since the January Council meeting. So we are still in the dark.
As usual, we appreciate your comments and feedback. Please write to us at info@supportlindfield.net. When/if we get any information about the project we will, of course, pass it on to you.
Regards,
The Support Lindfield Team