[dropcap]P[/dropcap]icture yourself in Mawson Park and walking downhill towards Queen Street.
It’s almost dusk as you lift your eyes and realise that the main feature of the streetscape is the contrast between a modern building and one built more than 100 years earlier in the 19th century.
The old Campbelltown court house, a beautiful building boasting Victorian elegance, is on the right, and these days is a children’s court.
Across Railway Street to the left is the Centre Court building built by the Brticevic brothers (no relation to the mayor) on the site of the famous Lack’s Hotel about 40 years ago.
But despite the obvious contrast between old and new, there’s a pleasant symmetry, and it is produced by their heights being more or less the same.
And if you look past both and to the distance, what do you see but hills – Scenic Hills to be exact.
And that pretty much describes everything that’s good about Campbelltown, what needs to be preserved and how it should look.
You didn’t need to spend God knows how many thousands of dollar enriching already wealthy consultants to find out how we move forward as the population increases.
You didn’t need to spend a cent to find out we need to attract investment to create good local jobs or what our infrastructure needs are.
Council’s leaders get upset when someone points out these things, but they better get used to it, especially when they try to defend the indefensible or when they roll out the spin.
Of course it is not the first council which has spent a stack of ratepayers money to get a report that’s almost certain to sit in a shelf somewhere gathering dust.
Back in the 1990s, I was a member of the main street committee, and the then council agreed to our suggestion to pay consultants to tell us how to improve Queen Street.
I don’t remember how much it cost, but it wasn’t peanuts and nothing came of it.
The Re-imagining Campbelltown wasn’t peanuts either; indeed, “it was a lot of money’’ is what councillors tell me as they roll their eyes.
You would have noticed that bit, the cost of this project, has not been mentioned by the council, even though by any measure residents deserve to know how much of their money was spent.
But it’s a pity councillors didn’t save our money and instead just wandered up to Mawson Park to take a look to the west to see what needs to be done.
