Six roads in the Nambucca Valley will get a new lease on life after they were approved for the State Government's Fixing Local Roads Package.
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The roads chosen for works include:
- Tilly Willy St, Macksville. An upgrade for heavy vehicles - both intersections with Taylors Arm Rd and McKay St will be stabilised, a tenser grid put in place, and a gravel overlay and spray seal will cover the 875m of road.
- Upper Warrell Creek Rd, Macksville. 620m of pavement will be rehabilitated with gravel overlay, new seal and spray up to the Industrial Estate bridge.
- Wellington Dr, Nambucca Heads. The existing pavement will be stabilised and a new asphalt surface poured.
- Old Coast Rd, North Macksville. The 1300m sections of unsealed road will be sealed.
- Boultons Crossing Rd, Gumma Reserve. A total of 1600m of road will be worked on, with the import of additional gravel for pavement depth, and two sealed coats. There will also be some alignment work and widening which may require some vegetation to be removed.
- Creek St, Nambucca Heads. Gravel overlay and spray seal to 90m of road.
The combined project funding comes in at just over a million dollars for our valley.
Mayor Rhonda Hoban was pleasantly surprised that all projects Council had put forward for the funding had been selected.
The usual story is you put in six applications and if you're lucky, you get one or two. So to get all six chosen is really great.
- Mayor Rhonda Hoban
"They're all projects that needed doing and that we've had numerous requests for over the years. Most are high traffic areas, and, in terms of bang for bucks, these projects were the ones that stood out."
Of the six approved projects, only one aims to replace a gravel road with a tar seal.
"We're always cautious about extending tar-sealed roads in the Valley in such a way that we're actually adding to our asset base. Sealed roads require a huge amount of ongoing maintenance, and funds to do that work. We could grade umpteen gravel roads for the cost of maintaining one sealed road," Cr Hoban said.
But she said Old Coast Rd was chosen for tarring because it is the alternate flood-proof route between Macksville, Nambucca, and the new hospital.
"And there were maintenance issues with having gaps of dirt road in between bitumen seal - it's inefficient to bring a grader out and have to do little gaps," she said.
Other projects chosen in the Oxley electorate included a $2 million upgrade to South West Rocks Rd, $935,000 for other rural roads in the Kempsey Shire, and rehabilitation of both Deer Vale and North Bank Rds in the Bellingen Shire.
"The Fixing Local Road Package will provide a funding injection to our community," Member for Oxley Melinda Pavey said.
"This work will support local jobs, contractors and businesses."
The Federal Government recently added an extra $191 million into the NSW Government's $500 million program which assists councils in reducing their local council roads maintenance backlog.
Member for Cowper Pat Conaghan said he was pleased six projects for the Nambucca had been chosen.
"It's clear they've taken into account that local roads don't necessarily mean the ones running through big centres like Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie. Fixing local roads means fixing ones like Old Coast Rd here - roads that service local communities," he said.
"Every single job that we support makes a huge difference in our local communities - now and as we navigate out of the pandemic."
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Mel Leigh Dee
Mel is a journalist at the Guardian News and is based in Macksville.
Mel is a journalist at the Guardian News and is based in Macksville.
