I find myself asking the question yet again about the wasted resources being placed into the Evocities campaign, just like everything this council does. What is the point of having a campaign to bring people to the bush when we have no employment for them?
Surely focusing on bringing industry and commercial projects to town would be a far better option than wasting money on the Evocity campaign.
As of the 15/02/12 there were 10 active jobs on the Armidale Evociies site compared with 42 on the Tamworth site. This works out to be 1 job per 1,400 people in Tamworth versus 1 job per 2,500 people in Armidale hardly an attractive option for people wanting to move to Armidale
The council goes on about how many people it has attracted via the Evocities project, but how many people have left Armidale, that goes un-reported. I believe to date 15 families have relocated to Armidale say 45 people over 18 months, my figures may be totally out, we need a population of 30,000 by 2020 to still be a viable town according to the report published on the Armidale councils website in 2011. Let us have a look at these figures based on current trends and also based on nobody leaving Armidale.
We need on average 41.6 people per month moving to Armidale to make the sustainable 30,000 figure (5000 required- 25,000 current to 30,000 by 2020-5,000/120 months or 10 years). The figures we are currently seeing are 2.5 persons per month, nowhere near the figure needed to make us viable. We really need a council that has vision and knows what it is doing.
David Elliot,
Armidale
