This is mayor Maree Statham's vision for a brighter Lithgow

Mayor Statham said she was "proud" of the cohesive councillors and hoped they believed in her vision to make Lithgow the best it possibly can be.

"There's only one or two ways and that's up and down, and we need to be up and progressive, and prosperous. We need to work hard to attain those results," she said in part two of her interview with the Lithgow Mercury about the region's future.

"All the villages are extremely important to me, it doesn't matter if it's Rydal, Tarana, Glen Alice or in between every one of those villages, people pay rates so we need to look after them."

Mayor Statham said they will not encourage investment, which brings development into the area, unless they can 'encourage people to turn off at McDonald's'.

Mayor Statham has a set vision for the beautification of Lithgow despite Council's lack of finances.

"We need to rip out everything on those highways that aren't perfect and start realising that traffic management costs a tremendous amount of money so trying to upkeep flowers is fabulous but we don't have that sort of money," she said.

"I think we have to look at low maintenance ways to make our entrances look inviting, respectable, but most importantly loved.

"The shop owners make wonderful displays with their windows and I walk up and down Main Street regularly and I have to commend most of the shop owners that are really, really trying, they're presenting their windows beautifully, but for the ones that aren't, I encourage them to just make a few changes."

Mayor Statham said it was important for people that get off the bus, the train or car that when they walk down Main Street it looks credible and buildings and shops need to be presented well.

"The old Portland Hospital is a prime example of something that has been purchased by an investor and left to wrack and ruin," she said.

"So after a certain amount of time, we're going to be presenting them with infringement notices so that at least Council may be able to use that money to hire somebody or council staff to look after that land.

"At the moment, I know if I was investing, I wouldn't look in some of the areas here that we have, because it is not looking great. So let's turn that around over the next three months."

Mayor Statham said that she feels fortunate enough to be down to earth so people can approach her to tell her what they feel is happening in their part of the electorate. This mainly includes roads and upkeep of land.

"It'll take a long time to catch up and we've had excessively dreadful weather but in saying that, we need to make sure that we are doing what people expect.

"We've got to provide quality, people paying their rates want to know what's happening with their rate money. We are doing regular work on the roads but it seems to be true that, you know, the amount of rain we've had, interferes with a lot of the success of the quality of work that's been done."

Mayor Statham said there is no point going to Sydney to advertise reasons to come to Lithgow, before the area is looking the best it possibly could.

"The Portland Tidy Towns have worked hard with different ideas that we've had and the village is looking really quite lovely, and there is no reason why we can't do things like that in Lithgow," she said.

"It is something that I'll be bringing to the Community Development Committee meeting. I've discussed it with the GM and now I hope that we can get some support, through some funding to enhance parks and gardens and, you know, our town in general, I think then that's the first start."

Mayor Statham said the next stop was to start knocking on doors in Western Sydney to do whatever we have to do to bring business here to encourage more growth.

"Once you get business, you'll get development and you'll get prosperity. But until we do that, I think Lithgow will be a bit flat for another six or eight months," she said.

"Then hopefully once COVID starts dissipating we can do things with the TAFE building and the Western Sydney University which is under-utilised and could be used for upskilling young people, middle aged people, any people that are keen to grow."

Mayor Statham said she has heard from around 30 people in the last three months say they are looking for tradesmen because you know most of them have chosen a life in the coal mines.

"A lot of the other very, very well respected people in their trade are now getting older and they're finding they're not working as much and I can understand that totally.

"So I think get some upskilling done, there'll be people out there at the moment that I'm sure would be willing to work and receive money for that to upskill. Or to actually skill people, so that we can get, you know, the generation coming through," she said.

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