Mr Edwards visited Copeton Dam last week to investigate the very early stages of planned redevelopments that could see the park take a slice of an $11.5 million Public Reserve Management Fund grant. He said the first task on the 10-year agenda is to upgrade the parks water, electricity and sewage works. 

“What you will see shortly is a water treatment plant built at Copeton to upgrade all water treatments, and there will be potable water throughout the park,” Mr Edwards said

“Electrical and sewer upgrades are also part of this expenditure on our parks. We are doing that right now. We are designing all of that up and some of the parks down south have already been implemented.”

Though major works are still in the very early planning stages, Mr Edwards said visiting Copeton was a good opportunity to gauge the general direction of the project. Funding for the project has been secured by the Trust, redirecting surplus funds from larger parks in the network to those regional parks situated on inland water storage sites.

“When these were individual trusts, if these trusts lost money, then they would really have no money to reinvest in the park,” Mr Edwards said.

“Ours is such a large trust, that we can move money from various parks that make extra money across the ones that don’t make as much.”

Mr Edwards and the Trust will be meeting with council and key stakeholder groups as the project plans get underway.