Message from the Mayor: 8 March 2024
Published on 08 March 2024
Hello, I'm John Connors, the Mayor of the Dungog shire bringing you this week's Mayoral Message.
The obvious highlight of this week was the announcement on Thursday afternoon of the funding for the bridge at Clarence Town to replace the Brig O’Johnston Bridge. It will be a bridge that will run parallel to the existing timber structure, upstream of that structure. The timber bridge will remain and is the property of Transport for NSW. They will restore it and it will ultimately be used for one lane of traffic heading towards the caravan park and the reserve. The new bridge, unlike the current structure, will be a two-lane bridge. It will be able to take heavy vehicles and oversize vehicles and it will have a pedestrian walkway. It's a resounding success for Council. It's some proof that having a proper advocacy strategy developed and then delivering that strategy on a regular, consistent, and polite basis brings results.
To get to where we were yesterday, I’ve had several meetings with the Federal Minister, Catherine King, and numerous meetings with the State Minister, Jenny Aitchison. They've both now shown that those meetings and the business case that we put to government, supported by the various briefing notes on each visit, have produced a wonderful result.
We will not sit on our laurels over getting that bridge, we will push on to get further grant funding hopefully in the next few weeks which will facilitate the replacement of the Suspension Bridge at Gresford, the upgrade of numerous river crossings throughout the shire, and work on the drainage within Hooke St in Dungog.
So that's the future, but the present case is the focus on the Clarence Town Bridge. The bridge is going to cost more than $20 million, so it's a major structure and a major project for Council.
The work on the bridge will commence once Council has received the funding from the government. We can't do anything until the funding is received otherwise, we'd be in breach of the Local Government Act. The moment the funding is received we will be calling for tenders and then ultimately evaluating those tenders and granting a tender to an engineering company and a construction company to construct the bridge. The tender will be to design and construct in accordance with the concept that's been developed to date.
It's anticipated that the tender process will take a significant period once it commences, probably 12 to 24 weeks. It will then be impacted by the local government elections in September, which mean that Council can't do very much in August or September. But it's hoped that the tender will be awarded in October and construction could start before the end of the year. It's then anticipated to take 12 to 18 months to complete. So great news, but a lot more to be done.
On the back of that news and in response to numerous daily requests from members of the community as to what my intentions are at the forthcoming elections in September, I have made the decision that I will seek re-election as Mayor of the Dungog shire and as a Councillor for A Ward. I'll be putting my energy into continuing to get outcomes such as the one we got this week. Throughout this term of Council, or my term as Mayor since March 2020, we've had an unprecedented amount of funding for capital works within the shire. I want to see that continue, notwithstanding that funding is going to become much, much harder to get in the future than it's been in the recent past.
So until next week, that's it from me, goodbye and good luck.