THE most eagerly awaited development on the local retail scene is the bigger, better and brighter new Bunnings store, announced a year or so back for a site at Pottery Estate.
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But don't go planning your shopping list just yet for even Bunnings can't give us an expected completion date.
Regional Manager for Bunnings, Simon O'Grady, told the column the new store will be a $13 million investment in Lithgow spread over 6000 square metres, 25 percent bigger than the existing western Main Street complex.
The improved layout will incorporate the trade requirements, timber yard, nursery and a wider range of home and lifestyle products.
Mr O'Grady said Bunnings is looking forward to bringing the new store to Lithgow and is eager for construction to get under way.
At the moment, though, there's no timeline for eager home handymen to get their new hardware fix.
Feeding the firies
THERE are heroes aplenty in the ranks of the Rural Fire Service (aka the bushfire brigade) but none more vital at the firefront than Hartley's Doreen Peters. Doreen has been a tireless member of the Hartley brigade for an amazing 60 years but has decided the time has come to retire to the back bench. Her legacy will forever remain her role in charge of the regional RFS catering unit with its mobile kitchen that kept weary firefighters fed , often in seriously threatening situations. Doreen not only supervised the food supply but drove the truck to the fire line. And while she's retiring from the kitchen at an age when most people have already put their feet up she won't be handing in her truck licence any time soon. Doreen's tireless efforts for the RFS earned her recognition in the Australia Day honours list a couple of years back with the emergency services equivalent of the OAM. In between feeding firefighters and helping keep the community safe Doreen found time year after year to blitz the competition in the cooking section of Lithgow Show.
Quicker to walk
PLANNING to travel east over Easter? Better go by train. The highway through the Mountains has become increasingly chaotic in holiday periods and this weekend will probably set new records in logjam. With the Medlow Bath roadworks it's now murderous even in quiet times. And patience in motorists is not always a virtue. Oh, and don't forget the double demerits.
Thought for Today
WONDERING if the media pile on targeting Commissioner Karen Webb would be happening if it was Kevin Webb. Soft target on a slow news week.
Constance Folly
WE'RE told the new generation of inter urban trains, rotting away in the Lithgow railway yards for a couple of years, should be in service later this year. The cut price, off the shelf trains were ordered under the regime of then Minister Andrew Constance, just like the new generation trouble plagued ferries, but have cost a fortune in remedial works when it was found they wouldn't fit through Mountains tunnels or platforms. They'll likely be obsolete before loading the first passengers out of Lithgow.
Happy Easter!
