Pool entry stays at $2 and extends to concession holders at Lambton,
community groups keep their $625 Crown land rent cap, and the penalty rate on overdue
rates drops a full point to 9.5 per cent. The buffer holding it all together: a
$450,000 surplus on a $458 million spend.
3 July 2026 · 3 sources, linked in the story
$458mtotal 2026/27 budget, adopted unanimously 16 June
$128m+for maintaining and delivering infrastructure
$2entry held at Beresfield, Wallsend, Mayfield and Stockton pools
The Heatherbrae Bypass is finished. When the Black Hill to Tomago section is done
later this year, the whole 15 km motorway opens and the Hexham bottleneck goes
with it. Nearly 25,000 vehicles a day are waiting.
The state will fund the final design of the 12,000-seat replacement for the
34-year-old Entertainment Centre, a venue council says costs the region more than
$20 million a year in acts that refuse to play it.
Two excavators, west to east, top to bottom, about six months. Wharf Road stays
open and the ferry keeps running; the western car park closes. What replaces the
building is a decision council has left for the new financial year.
The city’s draft Housing Strategy puts it at roughly 72 per cent of the 8,000
homes the state expects completed by 2029. The approvals exist; the construction
doesn’t. Rental vacancy sits at 1.1 per cent.
A carried motion asks the health district where its mooted HealthOne facility is
up to, and puts numbers on the gap: 20 per cent more emergency presentations expected
by 2036, and the nearest hospitals a long drive from the growth corridor.
Belmont, Charlestown, Marmong Point, Swansea and Warners Bay get pole-mounted
22 kW chargers with dedicated parking bays, four-hour limits and 100 per cent
renewable power. Addresses in the story.
The week’s entries
From the record