Darkwood resident, Howard Welsh joined by many of his fellow neighbours in the last council meeting in asking Council to please explain why the repair of Justin’s Bridge had not been made a priority.
“I have sent letters monthly to Council and also written to the RTA and Minister of Roads urging him to encourage Council to complete the necessary repairs,” said Mr Welsh.
Since the devastating floods of March last year, 11 properties located up Darkwood Road have experienced a total of 88 days isolated with no access. The residents feel this is partly due to ongoing flooding but also to the lack of priority council has placed on fixing Justin’s Bridge.
“The remote location of Justin’s Bridge from Bellingen had been Council's first and main explanation as to why no action has occurred on site to restore the bridge,” Mr Welsh said.
“It is necessary, in order to provide stability for the replacement bridge structure, to utilise socketed piles bored into the rock,” said Councils new Director of Engineering Wayne Butler.
“Access to this site is restrictive, to the large equipment necessary to undertake the piling process, due to narrow passage and poor road alignments existing at several other bridge locations on Darkwood Road prior to Justin’s Bridge,” he said.
The original promise was for the new bridge to be completed by the end of December 2009. The Jim Alexander bridge design’s plans were not approved until mid January 2010, two weeks after than the promised completion date.
“Why has it taken eight months to agree to the consultant’s designs,” asked Mr Welsh.
“Council engaged the services of a specialist bridge consultant, following the damage suffered during the March flood event, whose brief was to assess whether rehabilitating the partially damaged bridge was viable or if total replacement was in order,” said Mr Butler.
“However, these options changed when the bridge was substantially damaged during the May flood, with two spans being destroyed.”
This crossing has been cut five times to date the most recent being on February 7 this year.
“I was lucky to escape between the last two floods for an emergency appendix operation,” said Mr Welsh. “If it had have been a few days later it may have been necessary to use a helicopter or I could have died.”
“Everytime it rains we get nervous.”
“We fully appreciate that the people who live beyond Justin’s Bridge are affected each time it floods out there and we realise that is of great concern to them,” said General Manager Mike Colreavy.
“Many other people and many other roads and bridges around the Shire have also been impacted. We will get to all of them as soon as we possibly can.”
“Council is endeavouring to rise to the challenges of a flood repair program the equivalent of about five times our annual works spend,” Mr Colreavy said.
“Each repair task has to be designed before it can be implemented. The recent completion of the bridge over Boggy Creek is evidence that things are progressing.”
The limited number of suitable bridge contractors available within the area could present further delays once the design is finalised.
“The proposed foundation replacement process, for Justin’s Bridge, is new to Council and consequently, as our staff do not possess the technical expertise to undertake this specialist aspect of the works, Council will continue to pursue contractors to undertake this task,” said Mr Butler.
Council's Works Committee will be meeting in March to review progress on all 2009 flood damage restoration works including Justin’s Bridge and the timeframe for its replacement. Mr Welsh has been invited to attend the March meeting for further discussions.
“Assuming there are no further flood interruptions, Justin’s Bridge will be replaced this year,” said Mr Colreavy.
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