Tidy Towns committee chairperson, Cr Jason Hamling, yesterday urged residents to take a few minutes over the next two days to help spruce the city up ahead of the judge Syd Smith’s visit on Wednesday and Thursday.

“Appearance is just one part of the awards but it is still an important part,” Cr Hamling said.

Mr Smith, a director of Keep Australia Beautiful and a former senior curriculum coordinator with the NSW Department of Education and Training, yesterday said he was looking forward to visiting Orange.

“I’ve been to Orange before as a traveller but I haven’t done any Tidy Towns assessing in Orange so that’s something I’m really going to enjoy,” he said.

“A lot of people think Tidy Towns is just about looking good but that is just one part of it, it’s also about the culture of the town and how people work together on sustainability issues.

“I’ll be looking to see if everything in Orange fits together and makes a whole, how it integrates together to create a place with a future, something that will last for a very long time and people will still be able to enjoy a long time into the future.”

Mr Smith will be armed with last year’s judging notes and be looking to see if any improvements have been made to areas where Orange fell short of the the mark in 2008.

“We don’t expect everything to dramatically change over 12 months, just a slight improvement if possible and if there isn’t any improvements we take into consideration reasons why there hasn’t been, things like the drought for instance,” he said.

As well as the overall category, other projects nominated include the Holy Trinity Anglican Church restoration, the Wentworth Mine restoration, the Cootes Park revitalisation project and Orange City Council’s e-waste recycling scheme.

Other nominees include Anson Street School for the schools’ environment award and Orange City Council’s Watertight program for the water conservation award.