Just recently we noticed the new campaign for Moss Vale at the cinema so instead of driving on to Bowral as we usually do, we decided to stop and see what’s happening.

The Main shopping strip is definitely starting to change and it was good to see the interesting, bright, new businesses filling those previously empty spaces.

Congratulations to whoever is driving Moss Vale Opportunities galore, long overdue.

ON August 3 my Grandma had a fall in the main street of Bowral.

Apparently many people were around, but one person helped.

I would like to pass on a huge thank you to the Chev student that ran across the road to provide assistance to her.

He may never know how much it was appreciated, but good on him. He is a good person.

IT’S coming up to council election time again folks and frankly I'm worried!

It looks likely that without judicious voting at our next council elections, we could end up with nine men and no women on our next elected council.

That would be a first in many a decade.

All up there are 17 women running as candidates, but that's either under the line or, for the most part pretty low on the gentlemen's tickets. There's not one woman running first on her own ticket this election.

There are two new and untried men punting for election and although they have a woman or two fairly high on their tickets, I'm having a lot of trouble finding the women's credentials. The fact that these men are competing with tried ( if not always true), current incumbents, their hopes of getting their subsequent ticket runners on board are not high.

There are three women standing in position number two. The only one who rocks my boat is Lyndall McGath who's running second on Larry Whipper’s ticket.

Lyndall is an experienced environmental scientist and a Southern Highlands mum, as well as a very active member of Berrima Rotary Club.

Her profile has proven easy to find. Larry has a strong support base of voters. I just hope it's strong enough to get the good Ms McGrath a seat at the round table.

Do you remember Councillor Ian Scandret? He's the one who in his initial election promises included getting us cheaper electricity.

He does have women running on his ticket, two of them, but on positions five and seven. A touch tokenistic one might say along with ,"tell 'em their dreaming".

Then there's Gary Turland. He's running again.

He has a woman running on his ticket, Holly Campbell a currently sitting councillor, but he has her running fourth on his ticket.

That smacks once again of tokenism, or outrageous hubris.

So, come on teams, let's hear some more about the female contenders.

Especially the women running on number two positions on the blokes tickets. It seems a bit retro, this silence of the Gals.

THOSE residents who received in their letter box a brochure from Hume Coal – the South Korean Company POSCO - would do well to look past the comforting “myth-busting” the brochure endeavours to convey.

Of the four “myths” Hume tries to dispel, two were never even considered by residents of the Southern Highlands, who were aware from the start that the proposed mine was neither open cut nor for coal seam gas, so Hume is busting myths that never existed in the first place.

As to Hume’s claim that it will not use longwall mining but rather an “innovative” design, the method proposed is called Pine-Feather and is a design that has not, to my knowledge, been successfully used in Australia before. Hume’s claim that this method is “non-caving” and “protects the overlying groundwater systems and surface infrastructure” was not supported by an independent groundwater study.

Hume has repeatedly refused to release details about how their “innovative new method” will actually achieve their claimed objectives.

The fourth so-called “busted myth” claims there will be no coal dust impacts on Bowral or Burradoo as a direct result of the Hume Coal Project. What Hume does not mention is the indirect result of a six-storey, 800 metre long pile of coal sitting less than 10 kilometres from both these areas, at the mercy of the powerful westerlies that blow in the summer – the peak tourist time for Bowral and the Southern Highlands. Hume Coal cannot control the winds, nor can it prevent them from carrying fine coal dust and depositing it kilometres from the mine, on the tables and chairs of the outdoor cafes, on cars, house fronts, gardens, washing. One wonders how long the tourists will keep coming under such circumstances.

Hume’s claimed “range of controls” to minimise dust appears to be limited to putting covers on the 352 coal wagons that will thunder through the Highlands daily for the next 20 years, but to this reader it is not inconceivable that in order to reduce costs in a falling coal market, environmental concerns might be sacrificed, including covering the wagons.