Work for the Dole supervisor Jimmy Connors looked across the expanse of what used to be scrub and waste at the evolving May Street Park, now open to visitors.
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“This is going to be all levelled, to a certain point, and then across.” Jimmy said, indicating the newly cleared space for vehicle access.
“And this will all be bitumen, right around and in here, so people can turn around, and there’ll be plenty of parking. And then hopefully, with Rotary, there will be a couple of gardens up in up there.” He said a water system will be installed for maintenance crews to keep the lawns green.
And this will all be bitumen, right around and in here, so people can turn around.
- Jimmy Connors
The cleared view now allows park visitors a panoramic view of Inverell. The park has new picnic tables, shelters, and walkways for disabled access.
Inverell East Rotary has focused on the rehabilitation, once known as the Goat Tracks, as a club project, and have completed a plan of action for the site with the LLS. The club will share site maintenance with the Work for the Dole program participants who are learning under Jimmy’s guiding hand.
The working crews have been jointly funded by Inverell council and Northern Tablelands Local Land Services (LLS), and Jimmy is overseeing a new crew of eight Work for the Dole participants skilling-up in landscape and grounds work.
Program participant Adam Smith had been on the job a couple of weeks, and he and co-workers were taking a break after stacking the larger timber the wood chipper could not tackle.
“We did all the fencing and the previous group did all the turfing. Mowing is our job,” he said. “It’s not bad; it’s work. It’s six months on, six months off.”
While Jimmy explained about their next project of clearing around a rock face to be a feature of the park, contractor Bruce Wall and his team were on the job of shredding up the invasive species vegetation along the Macintyre River below.
Bruce said his mulcher made short work of the hill face beside the park, levelling the introduced species to wood chips in just four hours. It is only part of the project. “We’re going from here, all the way to Ring Street Bridge,” Bruce said.