NSW Farmers’ policy director for cropping and horticulture Robert Hardie will be addressing a meeting at the Cootamundra Ex-Servicemen’s and Citizens Memorial Club on Thursday, June 14, from 7pm.

The meeting is being organised by David Carter of NSW Farmers’ Illabo branch and Martin Honner from the June branch.

Mr Honner said he was keen to hear what local landholders thought about the rail line, which is to run from Brisbane to Melbourne.

The proposed corridor could affect farms in the area, depending on the outcome of a $6 million feasibility study looking at the Stockinbingal to Illabo section of the route.

Mr Honner is concerned there are still a number of issues which have not been adequately explained to landholders whose properties could be dissected by the Inland Rail lines.

One of the biggest, he said, was access.

Mr Honner said there are still questions surrounding the practicability of how farmers would, for example, get to paddocks, water troughs and livestock after the rail line was laid.

“No one wants to have to travel eight kilometres around and then back just to get to an access point so they can check a water trough,” he said.

“It is also going to affect land values.”

NSW Farmers has previously issued statements to explain that while the organisation backed the massive rail project, the long-standing support was “not a blank cheque”, and called for greater transparency and better consultation.

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