Repair work on the damaged Rocky Crossing at Gloucester will take place early into the new year.
The crossing was damaged in early 2022 from flooding and closed as a result.
MidCoast Council’s Director of Infrastructure and Engineering, Robert Scott, said significant wet weather events, including further major flooding in July 2022, prevented access to the site to survey the damage and design the repairs until early in 2023.
“The volume of water and it’s velocity made access difficult until earlier this year,” he said.
“We were still fixing major damage from the March 2021 flooding, and this just added to what we had to do.
“The longer it kept raining and the more floods we had meant that damage to the road network kept piling up.”
The overwhelming damage to much of the network meant priority needed to be given to other roads and bridges, such as Waukivory Road, Scone Road and other rural roads, where communities had no alternative access or had significantly longer detours.
“Clearing and stabilising landslips was a priority especially where the road was categorised as still at risk,” Mr Scott said.
“Since 2021 we have rectified significant road damage at over 400 separate sites due to the recent natural disasters.
“Our current expenditure on repairs from the disasters exceeds $36 million. This is on top of our normal revenue funded capital works program and the significant other grant funding we have received during the same period.
“This project has taken some time. After the initial delay of not being able to access the site, we still needed to collaborate with the government agencies administering the disaster repair funding and ensure we have all the approvals in place to proceed.
“We apologise for those delays but are excited to announce that repair works will start soon.”
