Ed, I for one, am getting so fed up with CVC’s apparent total lack of duty of care and consideration for the local population. It seems Council are less than willing to attend to the claims about asbestos next to the High School (in Tyson Street, South Grafton), by dealing with it in the professional manner it deserves. They seem to cloud or refute issues and reports from long term CVC workers who have observed dumping of asbestos on this site. There seems to be conflicting dollar amounts bandied about for the total cost of developing the site. They claim that they will sell off the other 5 depots in a bid to pay for some of the cost of this new development. This in itself raises the question of duplication of staff from each of the depots. Will those workers be sacked or offered other jobs at a lower pay? They approve their own DA, which in itself seems a conflict of interest. We are in millions of dollars of debt that apparently ‘seems’ to have happened after amalgamation. Who will, and how is this debt going to be repaid? They propose to increase our rates by 37% which will create further poverty to this valley. It will increase rents to those that are not home owners; business will have to increase the cost of their goods and or services and the increases will be passed along to all and sundry, especially those that can least afford it. This rate increase on top of the proposed land tax will send some to the wall. There seems to be little happening with our water, who holds the ownership and therefore the maintenance costs of our water supply? Something we should all be asking questions about. In an area where there are so many who would love to see this area flourish and grow, we apparently have a Council that is hell bent on its own glorification, not taking into consideration that this is a low socio economic area for a reason. We/they need to be creating somewhere, where young people can expand their education, get a job, rent a house, grow and flourish, without having to leave the area. Why can’t we have a University site somewhere here? Why is it that TAFE is in trouble? Why don’t we have Medical Practitioners and Specialists interested in staying and also flourishing in this beautiful area? Even the elderly have to travel out of the area for specialist treatments, and can least afford it, let alone the added expense of travel and accommodation outside the area. We have just had budget cuts to Medicare which will stop people having x-rays and other services that were previously covered under medicare etc. I know this are not CVC’s issues, however, it all runs together when people are deciding if they will stay in our area and try to build a future here. You can possibly see my frustration here. I came here to raise a family away from the madness of city life and live a peaceful less stressful existence, to find my children had to leave to further their education and instead of being able to return to an area that is flourishing and perhaps give the younger generation something to come home to, they find that it is a declining place to live with little opportunity. Amanda Glen, Gulmarrad