I guess Bathurst Regional Council channelled those thoughts from the “Iron Lady” when it made the decision to purchase a property in McKell Street, West Bathurst in what mayor Gary “Good News” Rush indicated was “the most expedient way to remedy the whole situation”. 

In essence, council used over $450,000 of ratepayers’ money to buy a house where it had previously approved a pool and privacy screens that an adjoining owner subsequently objected to due to the lack of notification of the original development applications.

It resulted in Justice Rachel Pepper, in the Land and Environment Court, stating the decision was “irrational, perverse and bizarre”. Ouch. 

So, doing a bit of rough maths, council wasted more than $200,000 on legal fees fighting two separate subjective planning staff decisions, which resulted in the embarrassing verbal flogging by Justice Pepper.

Now council has spent almost $500,000, including stamp duty and legals, to purchase the house that caused the drama with the intention, I assume, to pull down the pool.

So you can add another $100,000 to the ratepayers’ expense for demolition as council can do nothing cheaply. Then council will have to resell the house without a pool for substantially less than the purchase price.

So all up, this debacle has cost ratepayers anywhere between $400,000 and $500,000. 

Oh well, look on the bright side, dear ratepayers: council has made some changes to the DA process as a result of this case “to reduce subjective judgements by planning staff”. 

I ask again: where is the accountability within local government to ratepayers?

THE National Broadband Network (NBN) is on its way to Bathurst, with some residents receiving letters indicating that a node will be constructed at the front of their property. 

Well, this is great news for the majority of Bathurstians, but it appears the NBN is somewhat inflexible in regards to the location of the node, as one Windradyne resident has discovered after being notified a node will be constructed essentially in the middle of her block - yes, dead centre.

It will be interesting to see where nodes will be located throughout the conservation area. I, too, want the NBN, but not an ugly one metre-wide green box at my front door.

IT was great to see an Eglinton resident protesting about the substandard condition of the main arterial Eglinton Road. 

This may become a regular occurrence in an attempt to focus council’s engineering department on a particular street. 

Ratepayers in Toronto Street should be next to step in line.

THE Macquarie River getting a good flush-out, resulting in Burrendong Dam filling to more than 50 per cent.

COUNCIL spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers’ money to clean up a mess created by it. This money could have been used to sponsor the Rotary Young Drivers program for the next 20 years.