The rail trail to Ladysmith will not be a reality anytime soon, after Monday’s city council meeting opted against approving the project. Photo: Facebook/Rail Trail Australia.
A proposed rail trail from Wagga to Ladysmith will not proceed in the short term, after a majority of city councillors voted against the project at their meeting on Monday.
Made from former railway corridors, rail trails are paths for cyclists and bushwalkers.
“Our council must stop building assets and infrastructure that it cannot afford,” Cr Lindsay Tanner said. ”It’s nice for us to want a rail trail and it would be a lovely thing for our city, but we don’t need it.
“We need our potholes fixed. We need our unsealed road network graded. We need our footpaths repaired. We don’t need a rail trail. I just cannot continue to support something that is going to add that burden to our future generation.”
However, the project is not entirely off the table. A steering committee will be established and the council will continue to look for other forms of funding.
The Wagga to Ladysmith rail trail has been an ongoing issue, with Wagga City Council having affirmed its support three times: in 2008, 2014 and 2016. Cr Amelia Parkins urged the council to make a decision soon.
“Council has reaffirmed its support on multiple occasions since 2008,” she said. ”At some point, we need to make a call and either support it and allocate the required funding to move this project to the next phase, or shelve it.”
Cr Richard Foley voted against the construction of a rail trail, but noted there was support for the project and hoped that someone else would “pick up the bat”.
“Look, we are living in difficult times, there’s a cost-of-living crisis,” he said. ”We have infrastructure problems. As we can see around the room here, nobody in the room is against the concept of these rail trails.
“There are major engineering issues across the flood plain and that is a fact … The maintenance cost is nothing at the moment when you have a new asset, but when you’re talking years down the track is when that is an issue in itself.
“However, I think the opportunity lies now for the great enthusiasm that’s been shown by people, the proponents of this project, to pick up the bat and we will help where we can.
“But the reality is that the money is gonna be needed to be found somewhere.”
Cr Tim Koschel asked for the community’s patience and understanding while the council explored other forms of funding to make a rail trail to Ladysmith possible.
“I understand the frustrations of the community when they see bike paths around and they go, ‘You just spent $14 million on park bike paths’,” he said. ”But the frustration or the understanding of that is that’s money for grants for projects that comes from State and Federal government.
“And if we don’t have projects ready to put up and say, ‘We’ve got this project that needs funding’, that funding will go somewhere else. It will go to Albury or go to Orange, it’ll go to other regional communities through New South Wales.”
Crs Jenny McKinnon, Amelia Parkins and Tanner voted against the amendment put forward by Crs Koschel and Foley.
Mayor Dallas Tout and Crs Georgie Davis, Allana Condron and Karissa Subedi were in favour.
Cr McKinnon believes that the benefits of a rail trail to Ladysmith would outweigh the costs, and expressed her disappointment with the decision.
“I guess there’s a, you know, a very deep part of me that says, ‘Why aren’t we thinking about this as an investment in the future of these villages?’,” she said.
”This is about looking 20, 30, 40, 50 years ahead to what could be. It’s about showing the leadership that takes Wagga local government area in the direction that it needs to go.
“And I think to stymie this because of a lack of immediate money, when there is the possibility of a loan, there are ways of paying that off. But the community has also offered through Ms Glastonbury [rail trail chair Lisa Glastonbury] for the possibility of helping to do some funding.
“I guess I just wanna say that there are so many things that council has invested in, like Lake Albert and the blue-green algae issue, which haven’t necessarily brought any immediate returns.
“We have approved some plans for a great convention centre and changes to the Wagga Civic Centre that are going to sit there on the shelf until the grant money is actually available.”
At a press conference on Tuesday, Cr Tout said the decision was a good middle ground and a demonstration of democracy.
“That’s democracy, that’s where you have a variety of opinions and variety of stakeholders, and everyone has their position,” he said.
”Where we ended up, I thought was a good middle ground in that. Like I said, the creation of the steering committee that’s still to come back with terms of reports [and] reference [et cetera].
“But also the important thing last night was the inclusion of [the small nearby town of] Humula, because that’s only been initial discussions we can formally investigate internally in regard to that option, and there’s no cost involved in that.
“That’s only been initial discussions, so we’ll see what comes out of that for different stakeholders.”
