GREG Aplin has returned fire to Albury Council in response to stinging criticism of him and the NSW Government short-changing the city on major project funding.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Border Mail has obtained a letter written by the Albury MLA to mayor Henk van de Ven which lays the blame for failed funding bids squarely at the feet of council.
In the letter sent on July 25, Mr Aplin said if it wasn't for his intervention the council wouldn't have received $3.9 million for an airport upgrade last year.
“I had to urgently prepare a submission in support of council’s application for funding for the airport upgrade when I saw that council's own application was deficient,” Mr Aplin wrote.
“Council was applying for a grant to reward growth in a regional airport's traffic, with a submission that showed a dramatic but unexplained decline in patronage.
“These things are known by government in Sydney, and do not in any way assist me in obtaining funding.”
Data released recently showed Albury was the poor cousin compared to other NSW regional centres in the amount of state funding received over the last five years.
Mr Aplin has disputed the figures which showed Albury received $22.7 million compared to Wagga’s $385 million and Tamworth’s $351 million.
But Cr van de Ven used a mayoral minute at the July council meeting to take another whack.
Mr Aplin's letter to Cr van de Ven was written soon after the July meeting.
Cr van de Ven said a meeting with NSW Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian was being sought to clarify issues.
“Hopefully that will come to fruition sooner rather than later,” he said.
Cr van de Ven said the council wanted clarification on whether one of the reasons why the city was missing out on funding was due to its location on the NSW-Victoria border.
He told The Border Mail criticism of council funding submissions was Mr Aplin's opinion only.
“We don't agree, but if there were any errors on our part obviously we will change our processes to fix them,” Cr van de Ven said.
“We try to be very professional with all these grant applications and pride ourselves on having a pretty good success rate.”
Mr Aplin declined to comment on the letter.
