There are now 15 trees lit up with "fairy lights".

With the new gardens growing well with this year's high rainfall, it can truly be said that Coota's main street has never looked better.

While everyone agreed in September last year that the initial trial looked good, the Council decided to wait until funding became available before going ahead with the "full Monty".

Funding came this year with a grant from the federal government's Drought Relief Program for councils, designed to give an immediate economic boost to drought-affected areas.

The Cootamundra-Gundagai Regional Council received $1 million, divided equally between the former shire areas of Coota and Gundagai.

The first two trees were lit up in August last year, at the southern end of Parker Street near the Ex-Servicemen's Club for what was intended to be a three-month trial.

The community reaction was overwhelmingly positive, with many comments flowing in about how nice they looked, and at the September 2019 meeting of council, Councillor Gil Kelly proposed that the installation of the remaining 13 lights be fast-tracked.

However the motion was defeated over councillors' concerns that the $20,000 cost was not in the annual budget.

At the meeting, Cr Doug Phillips said he agreed the trees looked fantastic but "we keep banging on" about the need for the council to be more fiscally responsible, and if the funds weren't in the budget the tree lights needed to be put on a wish list for next year, not funded straight away.

Cr Charlie Sheahan agreed, saying he wouldn't like to see a precedent set whereby every time something was trialed people said "'oh jeez that's good, let's cut the trial short'.

Council decided to stay with the three-month trial, and also to investigate alternative sources of funding.

The drought relief funds were announced in March and delivered by Riverina MP and deputy prime minister Michael McCormack on 29 July, and council wasted no time in ordering new lights as part of a $500,000 program to upgrade the main street.

The first set of five lights were added last month, but there was a delay in obtaining the remaining eight sets, which arrived this month and have now been installed.

Good things come to those who wait!