Mayor Scott Ferguson was able to secure a meeting with NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian during her visit to Bathurst last week.

Councillor Ferguson said the Premier had heard about Blayney’s push to be declared ‘fit’ to access subsidised government loans.

Council is currently working through an infrastructure backlog, replacing six of the shire’s timber bridges.

“She’s picked up on our previous lobbying and that we wanted access to the Treasury Corporation funding,” Cr Ferguson said.

While council can borrow from commercial bankers, Cr Ferguson said that could add a minimum of $600,000 and potentially up to $1 million in extra interest payments over 20 years compared to a government loan.

Cr Ferguson said council was considering borrowing an estimated $1.5 million to top up the bridge replacement funds.

Part of the money will contribute to a significant renovation to Centrepoint, providing extra pipe work, a ramp for people with a disability and a filtration system

One of the bridges which is being replaced is the Dirt Hole Creek bridge, part of southern Cadia Road.

Council receives a $5.147 million grant to improve the access road.

“We want to top up the budget for the bridge work,” Cr Ferguson said.

“We’re going to do the bridges regardless, we have tremendous capacity to borrow at commercial rates, but it’s unfair for ratepayers to not have access to cheaper loans.

“One of our biggest priorities has been to address the infrastructure backlog, it was identified during the fit for the future process.”

Cr Ferguson said providing bridges for transport was part of the “core business” of councils and expected all bridges replaced in six to eight months.

Cr Ferguson said borrowing at commercial rates would only unnecessarily increase the inter-generational debt borne by ratepayers.

He said a proposal had been put to the state government to assist with a ‘fit’ declaration highlighting partnerships with CENTROC as the ‘unfit’ declaration was not due to state of the shire’s finances.

“It was because we were considered too small to have scale and capacity,” he said.

Cr Ferguson hoped “good news” could be expected in the coming weeks.