Please take a drive out to the dam and have a look. Better still, have a smell.

At least 50 per cent covered with algae, possibly blue-green algae, there is a mould on top that's been smelling like rotting vegetation this week. When the wind blows in your direction, it's putrid.

I think it's the prolonged heat of this summer and nutrient run off up stream. There's algae most summers but this summer is the worst I've seen it.

As Mayor Petty says, it's a relatively small sized dam so I'd say only very few people could be allowed on the dam at any one time to maintain a natural balance, mindful that this is our towns water supply. We've seen less bird-life this year already.

Possibly, if there were more pull-in locations along Scrub Road, we could enjoy the vista from safety and not upset the balance? There are long periods of time when algae makes the water unsafe so who will monitor this to tell us which days we can use the waterway?

At the last Tenterfield Shire Council meeting on November 23, 2016 it was resolved as part of a motion to investigate the benefits to Tenterfield community health of a transfer from the Hunger New England Health (HNEH) district to the Northern NSW Health District, which is based on Lismore.

The Local Health Committee  (LHC), whose role under its terms of reference is to provide leadership in the community to ensure health services and needs meet community expectations, resolved unanimously at its last meeting on December 14 to support council in lobbying our local Thomas George to investigate such a move to the Northern NSW Health District.

The LHC acknowledged that HNEH provides an excellent service at the PAM Hosptial especially in emergencies but it was the opinion of the LHS that the proximity of available hospitals in the Northern NSW Health and the Gold Coast would be to the benefit of the Tenterfield community. Specialists in all fields of medicine and surgery are much closer and more numerous than the New England area.

Northern NSW Health has working cross-border arrangements to southern Queensland which is not the case in our present district where cross-border transfers pose a problem.

Obvious benefits are travel times (Lismore, 35 min by helicopter; Gold Coast University hospital and Brisbane hospitals, 3.5 hrs by road; versus John Hunter Hospital, Newcastle —  our present tertiary hospital – 6.5 hours by road).

The proximity to northern NSW has an obvious benefit in visiting patients and for returning patients to Tenterfield. Public patients returning from Newcastle often face serious transport challenges.

(It should be noted that the recent concerns about doctors’ services at the hospital are not a reason to change districts as rural doctor supply has been a challenge in Northern NSW Health as well.)

Other arguments in favour of the move include the fact that Tenterfield is now part of the Lismore electorate and our local MP wold find it easier to address issues on a personal basis.

In fact Thomas George has already established a rapport with our LHC and council, and responded vigorously to recent concerns regarding doctors.

Anyone with an informed opinion on such a change should write to P Petty (mayor of Tenterfield) or contact a member of the LHC: J Brown (chair), I Unsworth, B Fischer, R Tumbridge, A Mckenzie, R Bancroft-Stewart, G Galloway, D Clayton or P Petty.