AGE is just a number, but the New England Futures Group have youth on their side.
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Standing in the Armidale Regional Council election as a group is David Levingston, Inga Brasche, Laurence Nussbaumer and Heidi Evans.
“Myself and a few business owners were worried about the way the town was going,” Mr Levingston said.
“We figured we couldn’t just sit back and complain, we actually needed to proactively pour into the town we had decided to live in long term.”
Issues the group has identified as major problems for Armidale are a reliance on publicly-owned enterprises to the detriment of small business, unemployment and a failure to sell the region as a tourism hot spot.
Opening up the new industrial land as a priority is the first step to success, Mr Levingston said.
“It’s in the pipeline, but it’s being pushed aside due to the prioritising of other development in the town,” he said.
“We already have private enterprise keen to move into those areas – we should be getting that developed as soon as possible and be selling it off to investors.”
To bring back small business, the group would like to see infrastructure better accommodate foot traffic.
That means investing in the East End Mall, which Mr Levingston feels has been largely ignored.
“We need offer incentives to businesses to move back into the mall,” he said.
“That isn’t just for business benefits, but as a cultural benefit to the entire town.”
But, how do we get more people to Armidale?
Use the Waterfall Way as a selling point, Mr Levingston said.
“It’s the biggest ticket that we’re sitting on, and it’s just not being capitalised on at all,” he said.
“It’s potentially one of the most under-sold tourist drives in NSW.
“We need to change our pitch from Experience the Highs, which actually tells no one anything about this region – to actually selling Armidale as a gateway to the most incredible waterfalls in Australia.” The election is on September 9.