Responding to claims made by Friends of the Lake founder Robert Lazzarini in The Daily Advertiser yesterday, Mrs Russell said she believed a large proportion of Wagga residents felt the precinct should be a high priority for council.

She said more than 700 people had provided positive feedback through direct consultation and a community survey earlier this year.

“We’ve had major community consultation over the last few months and the community is very keen to see something happening here,” she said.

“We’ve been pretty rigorous about making sure we’ve consulted properly before going ahead with the master plan.”

Mrs Russell said Mr Lazzarini’s concerns that Lake Albert was being neglected by the council were unfounded, with nearly $750,000 assigned towards rehabilitation and improvements in the next 10-year plan.

She said neither project would have funding reduced in order to boost the scale of the other.

“Both projects are critical to the future of the city, so we’re not looking for a win-lose, we’re looking for a win-win,” she said.

“We’re funding both projects and we’ve got the capacity in our next 10-year plan to actually do some quite good work.

“We think they’re both really valuable and important projects for the city and over the next few years are going to bring great benefits.”

Mrs Russell admitted flooding was a significant concern for council in the construction of the precinct, but that design company KIAH Infranet would take flooding into consideration as part of the master plan currently under development.

Despite calls for large-scale engineering work for Lake Albert, Mrs Russell said no amount of construction and stormwater diversion would benefit Lake Albert unless decent rain fell throughout winter.

“The biggest challenge we face with Lake Albert is that the lake’s water levels are determined by nature, not by council and I’m hoping we’re getting a bit of water in there at the moment,” she said.

“It will be an ongoing project for the city, but the only bottom line is we can’t make it rain, and even if we divert the storm water into the lake it won’t be enough to counteract the effects of things like evaporation.

“You’ll never get huge volumes of water

coming in to counteract that, the best thing we can do is wait for the rains to come in and replenish it.”

COMMUNITY SUPPORT: Wagga City Council general manager Lyn Russell believes the Riverside Precinct project is well supported by the community.