NBN upgrade for Westbury and Hadspen

Council decided to release cost estimate information received from NBNCo for a potential upgrade of the NBN rollout in Westbury and Hadspen. It revealed that the incremental cost to install fibre-optic broadband rather than second-rate copper (Fibre-to-the-Node) broadband was between $2,200,000-2,750,000 million for Hadspen and between $2,750,000-$3,300,000 for Westbury.

“These amounts are clearly beyond the resources of a small council such as Meander Valley to fund” Cr Connor said. “Furthermore, there was little substance as to how the figures were arrived at and it appears that no on-the-ground investigation was undertaken to support these estimates”.

Council will write to NBNCo and demand a refund of the $10,000 application fee due to the lack of information supporting these estimates. Cr Connor continued “ballpark figures such as those provided could have been arrived-at with publicly available information, we needed more substantive figures and supporting information to even consider progressing this upgrade”.

Holding a Council meeting in Prospect Vale – Rescinded

Council today rescinded their decision made in the November meeting to hold one regular meeting in 2016 in Prospect Vale. Usually council meetings are held monthly at the chambers in Westbury during the afternoon, however in recent years’ council has opted to hold one meeting per year in Prospect Vale during the evening. Cr Connor said “This was done to make the democratic workings of council more accessible to the 42% of the Meander Valley ratepayers who live in the urban areas of the municipality”.

Some Councilors sought to overturn their earlier decision on the basis of a miniscule cost saving and supposed safety concerns of staff driving in the dark.

“Council needs to be open and accessible to its community. It needs to accommodate community needs, not dictate them” Cr Connor said. “It is disappointing that council time is wasted on this kind of motion when there’s far more important issues to consider” he added.

Councilor Connor foreshadowed a motion that will mandate Internet streaming of council meetings using recently installed audio-visual equipment that will make all meetings more accessible to ratepayers.
Meander Valley Councillor Andrew Connor