‘Massively humbled’ Matthew Gould set to become Wollondilly’s first popularly elected mayor

A rural area slated for major development south-west of Sydney looks set to have a mayor who has vowed to “go into bat” on the growth pressure the area faces.

With more than 80 per cent of the votes counted in the Wollondilly Shire, Matthew Gould said it “seemed likely” he had made it across the line to become the region’s first popularly elected mayor.

On Wednesday night, the 31-year-old father of three took to Facebook to thank residents for their support in Saturday’s local government elections, and congratulated his runner-up, Judith Hannan, who trailed by 600 votes.

“I look forward to working constructively with her and the other elected councillors to address the significant challenges facing the shire throughout the upcoming term,” Cr Gould said.

“I am massively humbled by the level of support I’ve received and will do my utmost to be a mayor for the entire shire.

Infrastructure concerns

The online communications specialist has served on the council for the past five years and said he was determined to improve roads across the shire and address “growth pressures” facing the region.

In 2019 the New South Wales government declared Greater MacArthur a growth area, paving the way for 40,000 homes to be built between Camden and Wilton, including 18,000 dwellings at Appin and Wilton, which are within the shire’s boundaries.

Cr Gould said he would be “very vocal” and “firm” about Wollondilly’s infrastructure needs in line with its proposed growth.

“When you look at something like Wilton, the idea of building a city the size of Port Macquarie and not having appropriate infrastructure is just unbelievable,” he said.

“There’s a complete lack of public infrastructure, everything is relying on the Hume Highway and it’s not going to cope — they need rail in there for the population they’re talking about.

“We need to go into bat with the state government, with developers, with everybody, to say that if this is going to happen, this is the standard it needs to be at.”

Investing in tourism

Cr Gould said he believed investing in eco and agritourism was the best way to grow the local economy.

“If we don’t want to go the way of some of the Sydney councils, where they’ve basically developed out, we need to find an alternative way to have economic prosperity,” he said.

A life-long resident of Warragamba and deputy captain of the Silverdale Rural Fire Brigade, Cr Gould is also staunchly opposed to the state government’s controversial proposal to raise the Warragamba Dam wall.

He has previously made public his concerns the project was designed to free up land downstream of the dam for housing development, rather than mitigating flood damage.

‘I wish him well’

Judith Hannan said while the electoral commission still had votes to count, she was “fairly confident” Cr Gould had won the mayoral race.

“The problem is, because we couldn’t hand out ‘how to vote’ cards, it was hard enough to get people to understand where to put a ‘one,'” Cr Hannan said.

“So I suspect that the preferences will be very low, unfortunately.

Cr Hannan, the only woman likely to be elected on the council, said she was not surprised Cr Gould was a popular choice among voters.

“I guess it says that our people really want rural living,” she said.

“He is probably one of the most honest, well-meaning people we’ve got, so I wish him well.”