Member for Dubbo corrects the Mayor of Dubbo Region

DUBBO PHOTO NEWS ran a news brief last week under the headline “Council offers options for more hospital parking”.

The story began: “Using up some of Theresa Maliphant Park has been raised by Dubbo Regional Council as an option to solve ongoing parking problems at Dubbo Base Hospital.”

Last Wednesday, the Mayor of Dubbo Regional Council Ben Shields posted a video online which further detailed his and Council’s plan to solve the parking problem at Dubbo Hospital. It’s a problem that this newspaper raised well before the current kerfuffle blew up.

Last Thursday afternoon, Member for Dubbo Troy Grant issued a statement in response to the Mayor’s comments saying: “This community is tired of constantly being misled by this Mayor.”

Mr Grant continued: “The FACTS are; Theresa Maliphant

Park is Crown Land, gazetted on November 29, 1957, as a reserve for public recreation. The crown land reserve status of the park is current and Dubbo Regional Council is the ‘Crown Land Manager’, not the owner as publicly stated by the Mayor on numerous occasions.

“If the Mayor wishes to have this land re-classified from ‘community land’ to ‘operational land’ he will need to make that request and only the Minister for Lands and Forestry can make that consent.

“I have been advised that Council has made no contact with Crown Lands to discuss the proposal or seek the Minister’s consent to re-classification. Nor has he contacted me, as the local member, regarding this issue,” Mr Grant said.

He went on to say that he fully supports the call for additional car parking spaces at the Hospital. “I always have. However, my focus has been to build the actual heath infrastructure and services that a car park is needed for.”

I’ll leave you, dear reader, to sort out what you think of all that.