SINGLETON Council voted unanimously at its meeting on Monday night to support an application for $6million in funding to upgrade of the town’s livestock selling centre.
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The funding they are seeking is from the second round of the Resources for Regions Program and the saleyards will be one of four projects to be submitted by the council.
The others projects are the multi purpose exhibition space ($3.2m), cycle way access links to town centre ($4.3m) and Ryan Avenue upgrade ($2.93m).
Resources for Regions, which is managed by Infrastructure NSW, aims to support regional and rural NSW communities affected by mining by addressing infrastructure constraints.
Round one of the funding has already been allocated with Singleton receiving money to redevelop its town centre and submissions for the next round of $78million in funds close on December 2.
Singleton Council, general manager Lindy Hyam said the saleyards already had a backlog of work to the value of $2.5m and council were very keen to ensure the facility was upgraded to become totally compliant with the latest regulations.
“The facility adds to the economic diversity of the region and it is our role to make sure all economic sectors in the community receive infrastructure support,” she said.
“We have received $9m in funding for the town centre and the saleyards are another part of the region’s business sector and it makes sense for council to obtain funding for big ticket items like this from a program like Resources for Regions.
“It is council’s belief that once the facility is upgraded it will attract extra business not only to the facility but also the town itself.”
Mrs Hyam said council would investigate how best to improve the facility and obtain expert advice from the industry before final submissions were made.
“Our aim is to use clever ideas and be as smart as possible when it comes to the final upgrade plans – basically we want to improve the amenity of the saleyards, “ she said.
Singleton Agents Network fully support council in their bid with spokesman Scott Bailey saying the saleyards were in need of an upgrade as no major work, apart from environmental compliance work,had been carried out in the past 10-15 years.
“The local agents are excited by the prospect of major visual improvements at the centre – works that could result in Singleton becoming the number one selling centre in the Hunter, ” he said.
The Singleton saleyards currently operates a weekly cattle sale each Wednesday plus a monthly store cattle sale on Saturdays with an average of nearly 57,000 head passing through the complex each year.
The facility can currently handle 2000 head at any one time and the complex is accredited under the European Union Cattle Accreditation Scheme and has National Saleyards Quality Assurance accreditation.
