New Hawkesbury GM Will Barton puts trust, roads and delivery at top of agenda
TONY BOSWORTH | FROM rebuilding trust and delivering on the controversial rate rise, to flood resilience, ultramarathons and painting, Hawkesbury City Council’s new general manager Will Barton talks the Hawkesbury News about his priorities, the challenges ahead, and who he is.
Rebuilding community trust, delivering the infrastructure promised through Council’s Special Rate Variation and progressing major planning and economic strategies are among the top priorities for Hawkesbury City Council’s new general manager, Will Barton.
Mr Barton, who joined Council as Director of Infrastructure Services in 2021 and played a major role during the Hawkesbury’s recovery from successive floods, says senior Council staff also need to get out of their Windsor offices and build stronger direct relationships with communities across the region.
In a wide-ranging Q&A, he spoke about his background, the Hawkesbury’s infrastructure challenge, the controversial rate rise and why he believes community resilience remains one of the region’s greatest strengths.
Q: For residents meeting you for the first time, where did you grow up, what first attracted you to local government, and what brought you to the Hawkesbury? Could you also take us through the experiences that you feel best prepared you for this position?
A: I grew up not far from the Hawkesbury in the Upper Blue Mountains. I was born in Katoomba Hospital and stayed in Katoomba until I was about 19.
I studied civil engineering and, through my degree, picked up an internship with Junee Shire Council in the Riverina. We had a good spread of projects and infrastructure which covered the full gamut of civil engineering, and I realised very quickly that local government struck a chord with who I am and what drives me. For me, that is really about community. Growing up in the mountains, a lot of our prosperity and resilience, including through facing and dealing with bushfires, came from the strength of community. The neighbourhood I grew up in had only about 20 or 23 households, so it was very tight-knit. My family and I eventually came back to the Blue Mountains because we had young children and our support network was here. I worked at Canterbury-Bankstown Council, which I really enjoyed, but I had a yearning to get back to a council with more of a regional flavour. The Hawkesbury, with its strong communities and beautiful World Heritage areas on the doorstep, really appealed to me.
Q: You joined Hawkesbury Council as Director of Infrastructure Services in 2021 and helped oversee the recovery from successive floods. What did that period teach you about the Hawkesbury and the needs and resilience of its communities?
A: It reaffirmed everything I had assumed when I decided to apply for the role at Hawkesbury City Council. It showed me just how important Council is and the weight Council bears on people’s lives, both positively and negatively, but of course mostly positively. It also taught me the Hawkesbury is far more complex than I think a lot of people realise from outside. Most importantly, it reaffirmed that many of these communities are incredibly resilient, innovative and caring about their own people.
Community was one of the key things that helped get the Hawkesbury through a very difficult five or six years, including the floods and the bushfires. In the Hawkesbury, the Hawkesbury itself is part of people’s identity. You don’t always see that to the same extent in larger metropolitan areas.
Q: What are the three most important things you want to accomplish during your first 12 to 18 months as general manager, and how will residents be able to judge whether you have succeeded?
A: The first is rebuilding trust and confidence in Council or sustaining it where it already exists. The second is delivering on the Special Rate Variation. We have asked the community to put its faith in us that we will take that additional revenue and invest it as we said we would. Delivering on that is absolutely critical, and it feeds directly into trust and confidence. The third is delivering the key city-shaping plans and strategies - our Local Environmental Plan, refreshed Development Control Plan, economic development strategies and destination management plan. Those are key priorities for us over the next 12 to 18 months.
Q: What do you see as the greatest challenges facing the Hawkesbury, particularly given its large geographical area, ageing infrastructure, flood risk and continuing development pressures?
A: One of the challenges is that we are really a city of two identities. In pockets we are quite suburban, in places such as South Windsor, Richmond, North Richmond and Bligh Park, while we also have large rural and remote areas and areas experiencing growth. Underlying that is a broader challenge around social cohesion and social capital. Community was one of the defining things that got the Hawkesbury through floods and bushfires. Social cohesion and social capital are fundamental to being resilient to disasters. Council needs to be alive to that and, wherever we can, support the development and strengthening of those community connections.
Q: IPART has approved Council’s special rate variation of 8.66 per cent annually for four years - a cumulative increase of about 39.4 per cent. Why was an increase of that size considered necessary, and what would have happened to Council services and infrastructure without it?
A: Structurally, we have a deficit. Without the SRV, there would have been a continuing decline in the road network, and we would have had to make some tough decisions about how we continued to provide a safe and functional road system. That could have included speed reductions or, where a sealed road had deteriorated badly, converting it to gravel for a period until we had the funds to renew and reseal it. We would also have been looking at service reductions. Libraries, galleries, museums and pools would all have needed to be examined closely. But even if we had closed discretionary services, it still would not have closed the gap. The scale of what was required was simply too large.
Q: Many households are already under significant cost-of-living pressure and some residents opposed the rate rise. What do you say to ratepayers who believe they are being asked to pay substantially more without having seen sufficient value from their existing rates?
A: There is often a perception that rates are a fee for service - that I pay my rates and therefore I should get an equivalent service back in return. The reality is that rates are a broad-based land tax. They provide infrastructure and services that residents and visitors may use, and which are there when the community needs them.
Libraries are a good example. Someone might rarely use a library personally, but libraries support learning, literacy, engagement and social connection. Council is also facing the same cost pressures as households. Insurance, utilities and materials such as gravel, bitumen and asphalt have all increased significantly. So we are left with a choice: do less with the same revenue, or correct our revenue base so we can continue delivering services and renewing infrastructure.
Q: Council says the additional revenue will be spent exclusively on infrastructure renewal and upgrades, particularly roads. Which improvements should residents expect to see first, what measurable targets will be set, and how will Council publicly account for every dollar raised?
A: The SRV is exclusively for infrastructure renewal. It does not go towards operating costs. This year, of the approximately $2.88 million raised through the SRV, just under $2.5M is going to the road network. There is also funding for pathways and for public domain, open space and recreation assets, including playgrounds and play spaces. In future years we will also start to see community facilities and community buildings come into the SRV program. We are legally required to publish in our Operational Plan which projects will be funded through the SRV each year. Then, through our Annual Report, we are required to account for every cent raised through the SRV and where and how it was spent. We are also looking at better ways of communicating that through the Council website and signage so the community can clearly see where their money is going.
Q: As general manager, how do you intend to build trust in Council, improve communication with residents and ensure people across the Hawkesbury - including those in smaller and more remote communities - feel that their concerns are heard?
A: Part of it is personal. The executive particularly can’t just sit in our offices in Windsor. We need to establish relationships with as many community groups as possible. If the executive is known to our communities, and communities feel confident they can contact us about issues, that goes a long way towards building trust. People are looking for authenticity. We obviously can’t go out and have individual conversations with all 70,000 residents, but if we can find ways of having those conversations through community leaders and direct engagement, that helps. We also need to be prepared to acknowledge where we have erred, leave the politics aside and talk about the facts.
Q: Away from Council, what do you enjoy doing, what hobbies or pursuits help you switch off, and what might residents be surprised to learn about Will Barton?
A: I have many hobbies. My wife will tell you I have too many and not enough time to do them. I’m also studying a Master’s in disaster risk and resilience.
My main hobby is ultramarathons - generally races of 50 to 100 kilometres through the mountains. That’s where I find a lot of peace, where I can decompress, connect with community and switch off for a while. I’ve also volunteered with the Rural Fire Service since I was 14. And engineers have, I think, an unfair reputation for being overly analytical and uncreative. Through university I did photography as a small business to help fund my studies, and in more recent years I’ve started exploring painting as well - mainly landscapes.
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