Nice of you to say this Simon, however, now councillors (who are meant to make policy) can do something for the community in return, which is introducing a weekly green wheelie-bin service to handle the huge amount of dead plant material coming from our gardens.

Also you might consider a moratorium on tip fees for the number of dead trees which will also be coming your way from these same gardens.

So much of this garden destruction could have been avoided had you allowed even an hour's hand-held hose watering every second day rather than putting us onto the second highest water restrictions in May 2019 (Level 6 Armidale Dumaresq Drought Management Plan 2005) well before that plan required you to do so.

According to that plan, the trigger for Level 6 is when Malpas Dam drops to 25 per cent capacity.

When you introduced Level 6, Malpas Dam was at 48 per cent!

I have a copy of both the Armidale Dumaresq Drought Management Plan 2005 and the Guyra Drought Management Plan 2016 for any councillor who would like me to email them one or both, because you probably won't find these on your council website.

To the best of my knowledge, nothing has superseded these two plans.

So what drought management plan are you basing your current Level 5 restrictions on?