Speaking at the September meeting of council, Mr Harmon said he had met with Mr Hazzard in Sydney last week along with the Member for Tablelands, Adam Marshall. 

“I can say there was a very positive meeting outcome where Mr Hazzard has organised to have Hunter New England Heath, Health Infrastructure NSW, council and the local doctors to all get together in a meeting on the 9^th of October,” Cr Harmon said. 

The meeting signals a new and previously unannounced step in the consultation process which the Mayor said would be an “opportunity” to sit down, before the redevelopment plans go out to tender, and make sure the project addresses the current and “more importantly” future needs of the community.

In following up the reasons why the state minister became involved in a local-level consultation process, the Inverell Times was told by a spokeswoman for Mr Hazzard, that the Minster had met with the Mayor and Mr Marshall on September 21. 

“The Mayor and local member expressed to the Minister that they felt that it would be preferable for more communication to occur between Hunter New England Health, Health Infrastructure and the community so the Minister undertook to have such a meeting arranged,” she said. 

Mr Marshall confirmed he had requested the meeting. 

“I made the request to seek the Minister's agreement to having NSW Health Infrastructure, which is responsible for delivering the redevelopment project, Hunter New England Health, which operates the hospital, Inverell Shire Council and local clinicians to meet onsite to address some clinical and operational questions/issues which emerged as a result of the recent community information sessions,” he said. 

“Local clinicians have raised some legitimate questions and concerns as a result of the information presented at the community information sessions and the best way to resolve those matters before the project proceeds further is to have all the decision-makers sitting around the same table in Inverell and working out the solutions to ensure we achieve the community's objectives.” 

 A spokesperson for the private practitioners of Inverell, Dr Cheryl McIntyre, described the redevelopment as a “once in a lifetime opportunity”. 

“We want to get it right,” she said. “We want to discuss some concerns the doctors have about the redevelopment being able to meet the future needs for the Inverell community.”  

Although details of the concerns have not been released, community hospital advocate, Bob Bensley, who attended Wednesday’s council meeting, said he heard the Mayor’s announcement and is “really pleased that the matter has reached this stage and level”. 

Mr Bensley has campaigned for more community consultation on the redevelopment plans for over a year. 

“I would have loved to have seen this happen 12 months ago,” he said.