The weather forecast looks good, so there can be no excuses that wet weather hampered construction. Ratepayers, therefore, can look forward to a “billiard table” finish on what has been dubbed the Eglinton Road goat track. 

I hope engineers also take the opportunity to redesign this section of roadway to allow a merge lane for traffic exiting All Saints’ College heading eastbound as the recently introduced school zone has, as predicted, created additional bottlenecks and safety issues for city-bound traffic. 

I’d imagine more than 13,000 daily road users have council on speed dial such is the anticipation of these roadworks being completed and, to be blunt, contractors had better get it right, as I would guess that hundreds of thousands of dollars of ratepayers’ money has already been wasted.

I MENTIONED a few weeks ago (or maybe I should say a few weeks ago I was whingeing) about the subdued retail environment - declaring an interest, of course. 

Why? Well, I believe the horse-trading within the Federal Parliament and the conflicts within governing within NSW have sapped the confidence of punters, so they are simply not spending. 

“The fundamentals of the economy are good,” the experts repeatedly say. But Australia seriously needs decisive leadership to get things moving. 

Locally, the Central West desperately needs a few major legacy infrastructure projects like proposed gold mines at Kings Plains or Hill End.

No offence to all those hard-working accommodation and hospitality owners and their employees, but I don’t see the tourism sector sustaining the region. 

Tourism will add some “icing on the cake”, so to speak. 

Maybe the Prime Minister and state premiers need a new mantra which I hold dear: “Follow, lead or get out of the way.” 

SMITHY’S cartoon hit the nail on the head once again over the weekend. 

Mayor Gary Rush bunkered down in the Civic Centre looking out for “shock jocks” reinforced the embarrassment the city is enduring listening to the stoush between Radio 2GB host Ray Hadley and Cr Rush. 

A WORLDLY traveller chewed my ears off recently about the inappropriately named Bathurst Bullet - in particular, the total lack of seating comfort. 

“It’s torture,” they exclaimed, “three-and-a-half hours sitting on rock is criminal.”  

I assured this traveller that I believed the ageing Endeavour trains will be replaced relatively soon, so in the meantime I recommended they purchase a haemorrhoid cushion to soften the ride.

EGLINTON Road reconstruction to start after seven months after the roadworks failed on two occasions in March and April.

LACK of leadership to get things done. Political instability breeds instability. We need confidence to get things moving.