The lunch, organised by Singleton Council, covered the topic of creating and exploring new opportunities for employment and economic growth in our district.

It’s a topic that has become more important due to the current downturn in our district’s economically dominating mining industry.

Catherine Vale Vineyard, Broke, owner Wendy Lawson kicked off the discussion about making greater use of rehabilitated mine land by saying in Germany, where her daughter lives, a great deal of work had taken place in the past 20 years to make the best possible use of rehabilitated mine land.

“They have used the land to create new employment opportunities by transforming the land into parks – parks that have sculptures and art works in them or rock climbing facilities or golf courses,” she said.

“It means people who once worked in the mines still have jobs available in the local area – first in the rehabilitation and construction stage and later running the facilities.

“Some land was turned into industrial sites; anything that gets rid of the big voids and creates new employment opportunities.”

Businessman Peter Eason agreed with the suggestion, adding that Singleton and the Hunter Valley could develop a new industry by becoming world leaders in mine rehabilitation technology.

He also said the current aims of rehabilitation were not high enough.

“All we are looking at now is returning the land to grazing and we should be aiming much higher than that when the land is returned to our community,” he said.

“We need a holistic approach with an entire region plan – synoptic plan so we know what is required and then develop the plans to rehabilitate the land by building and using the best technology.”

Mr Eason also said rehabilitation should not simply be left to coal companies because their expertise is in extracting coal.

“We need specialists in the field and the government ensuring the best outcome for the community once mining ceases,” he said.

He suggested involving universities to regenerate communities that have been lost to mining.

“We could recreate our lost villages – bring the villages back to the valley 

but do it with the latest housing and environmental ideas – making them ecologically sustainable.”

Guest speaker at the business lunch was Amanda Kenyon, consultant Strategic Economic Solutions.

She has been working on developing council’s economic strategy and spoke about some of the findings to date in her work.

Of interest was the fact 46 per cent of people working in the mining industry do not reside in the Singleton Local Government Area (LGA).

During the decade 2001-2011, the number of people employed in the 

mining industry increased by 94 per cent in Singleton LGA while during the same period there had been a decrease in the agricultural workforce.

Ms Kenyon described these figures as showing Singleton was a “muscle town” where growth took place in its core economic strengths.

“But as we have seen during the downturn in mining sector that makes the economic activity vulnerable,” she said.

“We need to turn Singleton into a thriving town where there is far greater employment diversity.”