New Back Creek Road bridge officially opened

Kyogle Council Mayor Danielle Mulholland and Member for Page Kevin Hogan together with a host of delighted locals shared the honour of officially opening the new Back Creek Road bridge on Tuesday 30 January.

The new two-lane steel truss bride replaces an old single-lane timber bridge that was closed for safety reasons to all traffic in May 2016. The closure meant residents, including school students, had to detour around the bridge, in some cases adding about 15km to their trip.

The new bridge cost $640,000 to build and was jointly funded by Kyogle Council and the Federal Government as part of a $2 million funding commitment made by the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, the Hon Darren Chester before the last federal election after representations by Mayor Danielle Mulholland through Member for Page Kevin Hogan MP.

Mr Hogan described the new bridge as great news for the local community.

“The new Boorabee Park Bridge and the other bridges that we are upgrading will allow emergency services to reach the community during natural disasters, improve safety, and reduce travel time for motorists, while reducing ongoing maintenance costs for council,” he said.

“And importantly for farmers, they will now be able to get their product to markets.

“Kyogle and Districts have one of the highest numbers of wooden bridges in the State. I would like to thank the Council for working with the Federal Government to replace many of these bridges.”

Kyogle Mayor Danielle Mulholland said the cooperative relationship between Council and the  Federal Government was paying dividends in terms of the Council’s bridge replacement program.

“Because of these partnerships, Council is gradually reducing our infrastructure backlog and delivering more bridges than ever before,”  she said.