Tasco’s Bart Crawley and Craig Lamont led Saturday’s site tour for Snowy River Mayor John Cahill, former Monaro MP Steve Whan, Bombala Mayor Bob Stewart, Bega Mayor Tony Allen and Eurobodalla Mayor Fergus Thomson.
INTEREST in the progress of the Tasco sawmill expansion is practically unquenchable, and yet another site tour was enjoyed last Saturday, this time at the invite of Bombala Council Mayor, Bob Stewart.
Given the recent announcement of Regional Development Australia funding for the Bombala Timber Precinct Project, Mayor Stewart was particularly keen for some government representatives to tour the site.
While the State and Federal MPs for the region were unable to attend, former Member for Monaro, Steve Whan was amongst the guests, as were mayors from neighbouring Councils.
While the Cooma-Monaro Mayor was regrettably an apology, Mayors from Snowy River, Bega and Eurobodalla were in attendance, welcomed by Cr Stewart and Bombala Council General Manager, Don Cottee.
The tour group consisted of around 40 guests in total, with many of these including members of local service clubs and other interested community people invited by Cr Stewart.
The tour itself was led by Tasco Managing Director, Bart Crawley and Project Manager, Craig Lamont, and the guests were greatly impressed by the scale of the expansion, known as Project Namu.
In particular there was great interest shown in the massive new shed that is being erected to house the new Hew Saw, and all were astonished to learn the throughput of logs the state of the art mill will produce.
Of course the various other buildings, equipment, road works, dams and cement works on site were all of great interest to the touring party.
Those from outside of the area in particular were amazed by the size of the development, and Cr Stewart and the Tasco team were extremely pleased to give the visitors a better understanding of the project and its wide reaching benefits to the area.
“One of the clearest things to come from the day was the surprise that our visitors experienced on seeing the size of the development, and understanding the production capacity the expansion will allow for,” Mayor Stewart said.
“It is a huge project requiring a huge commitment from Tasco and Donghwa, and people don’t always realise the scale of the development, and the speed with which it’s moving ahead.”
Cr Stewart went onto say that the Mayor of Snowy River Council had even commented that Project Namu may be the largest development on the Monaro since the immense Snowy Mountains Scheme.
And Cr Stewart couldn’t have more praise for the way the project has progressed.
“We are extremely fortunate to have such a company here investing in the development and ensuring everything is done right, and we as a community need to get behind them and show all the support we can,” he said.
“I am also grateful to Tasco for being so open and giving the opportunity for these site tours to go ahead, and we hope to be able to arrange more in the future to ensure as many locals as possible get the chance to see the project unfold.”
For now, if you’d like to learn more on
Project Namu’s progress, please visit www.tascoaustralia.com.au