News · Land use · Singleton
Singleton voted down its own town centre masterplan. The $94,000 now comes from somewhere else.
Two years of work, a grant, consultants, a month on exhibition,
236 submissions and a petition carrying 437 signatures. The
officers’ report to the 18 August meeting recommended council adopt the Singleton Town
Centre Masterplan as amended. Council instead resolved, in a motion identical to the
recommendation but for one word, to not adopt it. Officers had already told
councillors what that means for the money: the plan cost about
$94,000, the grant covers it only if the plan is adopted by August 2026, and
otherwise the amount will need to be found from other planned expenditure
.
Singleton was awarded the funding on 26 May 2025, under the Regional Housing Strategic Planning Fund Round 3, to review and update a masterplan the town had held since 2013. Staff worked with the planning consultants Urbis. The result was exhibited from 28 May to 28 June 2026, a window that was itself extended: council had a webpage outage that left the draft undownloadable for about twelve hours, so the deadline moved from 25 June to 28 June.
What the town said
236 individual submissions came in. On top of them council received
a public petition containing 437 signatures, which expressed opposition to the proposed reduction
in public parking within the town centre and supported the retention of Burns Lane and Annes Lane as
important access routes to assist with traffic circulation.
The report is not one-sided about the feedback. It records
strong community support for improvements to amenity and activation, including additional seating
and shade, enhanced greenery, better use of parks and the riverfront, increased outdoor dining,
events and cultural activities, and a more diverse mix of retail and hospitality
, and it names
the Singleton Bypass as a key catalyst for change, presenting an opportunity to reposition the
town centre as a destination rather than a movement corridor
. Officers then amended the draft in
response to what came back, and recommended council adopt the amended version.
The meeting
The minutes record four speakers registered against the recommendation and none for it: Valerie Scott, Bronwyn Dunston as Chair of Ourcare Services, Kevin Morgan and Martin Fallding. The minutes list who spoke, not what they said, so we cannot tell you their reasons and we are not going to guess at them.
Resolution 105/26 was moved by Cr H Jenkins and seconded by Cr M McLachlan. It keeps the
officers’ first limb, receiving and noting the submissions, and reverses the second: council
resolved to Not adopt the Singleton Town Centre Masterplan as amended.
The minutes record it
as carried and record no division, so there is no published vote count and we will not imply one.
The minutes also do not record any debate on the item, so what changed between the officers’ recommendation and the vote is not on the public record. The speakers and the vote are two facts in the same minutes; nothing in them establishes that one caused the other.
The money, and the part councillors were told in advance
The officers’ report is unambiguous under Financial Implications:
The draft Masterplan cost approximately $94,000 to develop. If the plan is adopted by August
2026, this amount will be fully funded by the RHSPF grant. If the plan is not adopted, this amount
will need to be found from other planned expenditure.
Councillors asked about exactly this before the meeting, and the answers are in the supplementary papers. Cr Watson asked whether an extension to the funding deadline could be sought. The answer discloses something that had not been public: council staff had already negotiated one extension to August 2026, and then went further.
Staff initially sought for the final grant milestone to be exhibition of the Masterplan and not
adoption, noting the significant risks associated with Council endorsement. The Department of
Planning, Housing and Infrastructure did not agree to this proposal.
That is the sentence worth sitting with. Council’s own staff foresaw the risk that councillors might not endorse the plan, asked the department to tie the grant to putting it on exhibition rather than to adopting it, and were told no. The risk they named then is the one that materialised on 18 August.
Cr Jenkins, who moved the motion not to adopt, had also asked in advance about the funding.
The response was that It is the Council’s democratic right to endorse or not to endorse the
plan
, that staff were currently investigating if we have to return funding, or partial
funding, if the plan is not adopted
, and that The Acting General Manager will provide an
update at the meeting.
The minutes do not record that update, or any answer to it. So the single question a Singleton ratepayer would want settled, whether this decision costs about $94,000 out of other planned spending or something less, is not answered in the public record of the meeting that made it.
What was not decided
Not adopting is not rejecting the town centre. The 2013 masterplan is not repealed by this and the report notes the adopted Singleton Local Infrastructure Contributions Plan already carries town-centre items, including $11.916 million for a Town Centre Upgrade and $1.5 million for shared paths. What the council declined was the new strategic framework, and with it the grant condition attached to adopting it.
How we did this
Three documents from Singleton Council’s own portal, all read directly: the 18 August 2026 meeting agenda (449 pages), the supplementary attachment of collated councillor questions (19 pages) and the minutes (18 pages). The submission counts, the petition, the exhibition dates, the outage, the financial implications and the contributions-plan figures are from the officers’ report; the questions and answers are from the supplementary; the speakers, the motion and its carriage are from the minutes. Every quotation is verbatim.
Three limits. We have not read the submissions themselves, which are an attachment under separate cover, so the characterisation of community feedback above is the officers’, not ours. We do not know why any councillor voted as they did, because the minutes record no debate, and we have deliberately not drawn a line between the four speakers and the outcome. And we have not confirmed whether any grant money must actually be repaid: staff said on the papers that they were still investigating it, and the minutes do not record the update they promised.
Sources
- Singleton Council, Council Meeting agenda, 18 August 2026 (PDF, 449 pages), item GM51/26, read 30 August 2026: the RHSPF Round 3 award of 26 May 2025, Urbis as consultants, the exhibition dates and the webpage outage extension, the 236 submissions and the 437-signature petition, the community-support passage, the Financial Implications paragraph, and the contributions-plan figures.
- Singleton Council, supplementary agenda attachment, collated councillor questions, 18 August 2026 (PDF, 19 pages), read 30 August 2026: Cr Watson’s question and the answer disclosing that the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure refused the request to make exhibition rather than adoption the final grant milestone; Cr Jenkins’s question and the answer on returning funding.
- Singleton Council, Council Meeting minutes, 18 August 2026 (PDF, 18 pages), read 30 August 2026: item GM51/26, the four registered speakers against and none for, resolution 105/26 with its mover and seconder, its carriage, and the absence of any recorded division, debate or funding update.
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