A number of school children are coming to help with the shire preparing the trench and laying a drip system.   

Local Garden Club members are lending their expertise, so come along and lend a hand if you would like to participate in some future beautification of that approach to town at 10am.

Thanks to a few who turned up last Sunday to lend a hand in our “Clean Up Australia Day” local effort.   

We had put this off from the hot summer months until the cooler weather, and cleaned up more than a kilometre along the tip road adjacent to the entrance to the airport.   

The tip will be shut this week and will re-open on Saturday to enable a new cell to be dug.   Sorry for any inconvenience caused.   

The long paper trail of approvals to fencing off a new area, with a new cell on the northern side of the tip, is nearing completion with the expected end result a big improvement on what’s presently available.

The federal Treasurer’s effort to reduce the deficit has had an immediate adverse affect on Councils like ours, with our Financial Assistance Grants being frozen at last year’s levels for three years.   

This puts a lot of extra pressure on our budget.   However, our local federal Member, Mark Coulton has told us that next financial year (2015/2016), we should receive a double payment of Roads to Recovery money.   

For Councils like ours with large road lengths, this should ensure that we will not be too much behind after three years, if it eventuates.   

We are told that the legislation to continue Roads to Recovery money has bipartisan support, but is tied up in a bill that still has elements that the parties disagree on.   

The mess the Senate is in at the moment, it is a wonder some of them know how to

pass through a door let along pass any legislation!  

Some good news from the state coffers though, as we are informed that we have funding to carry out another 2.5 to 3kms of reconstruction on the Mitchell Highway end of Nyngan, and have been successful in obtaining a Repair Grant to seal a further 2kms of the Hermidale-Nymagee Road.  

As mining increases at Nymagee, we are insisting on a substantial contribution to maintenance of the gravel section of this road with the transport of ore to the rail head at Hermidale.   

A major facelift has been carried out on our four “Welcome to Nyngan” signs at the respective highway entrances to Bogan Shire.  

We welcome all from the Western Rivers Veterinary Group who have started to carry out their operations from their new complex in Lawler Street opposite the shire depot.  

To have a well-fenced off new veterinary shed and clinic operating locally is a great plus for our local animals and owners, and we hope it will become a well-established, successful business in the shire.

Major works are continuing at the pool with the filtration plant room being demolished and replaced on a new concrete slab.   

This whole area of the pool is long overdue for a major upgrade and when finished, with improved drainage and protected area for the swimming club to store some of their equipment, it will contribute to another successful season.

I am sure all members of our community join so many others nationally in extending sympathy to the families of all those killed with the shooting down of the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, particularly the Australian victims.   

At the time of writing this report one wonders why some United Nations Armed Forces, with sanction from the Ukraine government, cannot land and surround the crash site and secure it for the removal of bodies and investigation of the cause of the crash.  

Surely the International Community, and more importantly the families of the victims, deserve more than the United Nationals Security Council dabbling over a resolution, which Russia may well veto anyway, while the crash site is isolated by pro Russian rebels and the return of victims put in jeopardy.   

Plenty on the local calendar next week, with the 50th Anniversary of the Nyngan Rotary Club, major political acknowledgement of the Solar Farm and Nyngan Ag Expo.

RL Donald, Mayor