Festive season a time to celebrate 2019’s achievements

City of Newcastle is praising its staff and thanking the local community for a hugely successful year that has seen town centres revitalised, environmental milestones achieved, and millions of dollars invested in the city.

Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes said 2019 was a year marked by investment in the city’s outer suburbs, sustainability initiatives and unprecedented community engagement.

“With the festive season upon us and most locals including our hard-working employees looking forward to a well-earned break, it’s important to celebrate our collective achievements over 2019.”

“We continued delivering improved public spaces for our community, including the $2 million Stockton Active Hub, new playgrounds at Wallsend, Adamstown and Rankin Park, and the City’s first fenced dog park in North Lambton.

“We added new parkland in the City centre. Reinvigorated town centres were opened in Beresfield and Carrington, with the multi-million projects including new roads, footpaths, drainage and landscaping.

“City staff moved to new offices in the West End where they’re now under one roof for the first time. The modern space and new way of working has fostered greater communication and collaboration within our large team and paved the way for the start of construction of the City’s first 5-Star hotel in the former ‘Roundhouse’ building.

“Our investment in sustainability means from 1 January 2020 we will be powered by 100 per cent renewable energy, including power sourced from wind in addition to our five-megawatt solar farm on former landfill at Summerhill.

“Our efforts to become a smart, liveable and sustainable global city were recognised with three prestigious smart city awards that saw us eclipse Singapore and other major international cities.

“Meanwhile, we continued to grow our reputation as one of the country’s leading event destinations with the Newcastle 500 attracting more than 154,000 attendees and our beautiful city beamed to a national TV audience of 1.8 million people.

“These achievements only scratch the surface of what was delivered this year and is testament to our employees who have put in a mammoth effort to deliver a record amount of work in improving the city.”

City of Newcastle’s offices and Customer Contact Centre will be closed from noon Friday 20 December 2019 and will re-open 8.30am Thursday 2 January 2020. Emergency calls will be answered by our after-hours service provider. More information about City of Newcastle services is available at our website www.newcastle.nsw.gov.au.