Hello. Dungog Shire!
Alright, I'll kick off with the Clarence Town Bridge. So big milestone there. Clarence Town Bridge officially opened to traffic on Monday. It's a big milestone for the project, years in the making, and one that I know myself and many residents, particularly those in Clarence Town, have been waiting for.
But don't get too excited, because there's still quite a lot of work to do. The rest of the work will continue until the end of 2026, or maybe even until the start of 2027, it just depends on the weather. During this time, the bridge will continue to operate with single-lane access, maybe not for the whole time, but definitely for the next couple of months. The idea is that they'll work on one half of the bridge while you drive on the other half, and then they'll eventually swap over.
Along Durham St and Limeburners Creek Rd, reduced speed limits, traffic controls, and everything that's already in place will continue. But if you do want to keep an eye on the progress, just head over to the Facebook page or the website; there will be updates quite regularly there.
With Brig O'Johnston Bridge now closed, this gives Transport for NSW a really good opportunity to finally start cracking on with the restoration of the bridge. That bridge will now be closed until the rehabilitation works are finished, and that will take a while. It's not expected to finish until mid-2029, so it's quite a long project.
The old Brig O'Johnston Bridge is the oldest surviving timber truss bridge in NSW of its design. The New South Wales Heritage Office has deemed it incredibly important to protect it for future generations and is willing to spend millions of dollars to do that work. So that's what they're going to do. And if you are on the new bridge, looking down at the old bridge, you will see how bad its condition is. So it's probably good that they got onto that a little earlier than planned.
Last week was a big advocacy push for Dungog Shire. It started with Cr Michael Dowling, who went down to the NSW Parliament and participated in the NSW Local Government Forums. From what I've heard, there was a focus on water security in the regions. If you've ever talked to Cr Michael Dowling, you will know this is something he's absolutely passionate about, so I'm happy he got the chance to go down there and talk all things dams and water security.
I then attended the Country Mayor's Advocacy Delegation to the NSW Parliament, and I had a really good chance to talk to MPs one-on-one, including the Premier this time, which was great. I took that chance to talk about funding, or the lack of it, as I often do. And this time, I finally got confirmation that the funding model is indeed broken. Obviously it is. For me, the big focus was Block Grant Funding, and that's what I was really pushing last week. A good example is the road that goes from Tocal, from Maitland into Dungog. It's the same road, right? It has the same cars, the same traffic, the same use, the same maintenance cost, yet Maitland Council gets double the funding we do to maintain the same road. Cars don't just magically turn around at the Maitland Council border and not go into Dungog Shire. It's illogical, right? So that was a big push for me, and it was well received. So, you know, we are getting traction on that.
Lastly, the Mayor was in Taree. He was representing the Hunter Joint Organisation last week for the federal inquiry into local government funding. Our federal member was there as well to help push that forward. They were advocating for fairer and more sustainable funding models for regional councils, and it's a really important conversation because financial pressures are not unique to Dungog, although I would say we're probably the hardest-hit Council. They are being felt across regional Australia, particularly in NSW right now. It's something that a lot of councils were saying, 'Hey, we just don't have the financial safety to continue operations. It's getting pretty grim there.'
So it's safe to say the state government was hit from all angles last week, especially on all things Dungog, and we will keep the pressure on. This is our primary job, and we will absolutely drive that.
So, looking at next week. Next week is the monthly council meeting, and there are a few key items I'll quickly touch on. The agenda includes the Quarterly Plan and development figures, proposed new road names for subdivisions in Martins Creek and Clarence Town. There's a quarterly budget review update, investment reports, and the latest delivery program progress updates. There are also a few confidential items related to the tender process for the new Gresford Bridge. It's exciting that that's finally starting to gain traction as well.
One thing that I would like to flag to the community is that, like most regional councils, the current budget position is under financial pressure right now. Costs for materials, contracts, insurance, and staffing continue to rise at a much faster rate than revenue, and we're also carrying, here in Dungog Shire, a massive infrastructure responsibility with very, very little ratepayer base to actually fund it.
The current budget position on paper, I'm not going to lie to you, the numbers do not look good right now. But I want to explain why, because a large part of that is timing. At the start of this year and at the end of last year, we were hit by several natural disasters. Luckily, they were declared natural disasters by the state government, which unlocked funding for us to do those repairs, which is great. But unfortunately, and this is something I've raised as an issue for small councils, we actually have to go out and spend that money on those repairs, and it's five or six months before we start getting this money back. That's how long it takes to get that money back. So in the meantime, it really hits Council's budget. So that's a big part of it. We're still waiting on the disaster recovery payments to come back, and then, along with that, we did have quite a lot of planned disposal assets hit the books this quarter as well. So that won't continue on forever. That's just a temporary thing. But you know, these are two of the biggest reasons this budget looks quite grim.
We are heading toward a position where we're getting up to about 70% reliant on grants in the foreseeable future, and that's pretty significant for a council or any business. So there are real issues there, but we are working on them slowly and advocating for real change, because that's ultimately what we need.
That's a good segue onto the Draft Operational Plan and Budget, which is still on public exhibition. It does close on Sunday, so if you want to get something in there, if there is something that you're passionate about that you think council should be focusing on, this really is your last chance to go and have your say on that.
And finally, there are major rail shutdowns this weekend. Anyone traveling on the train system over the weekend will encounter major shutdowns across the Hunter and North Coast from Saturday, the 16th, through Monday, the 18th. Buses will replace services from Dungog station, and the North Coast XPT service also won't operate during the shutdown. So anyone traveling should definitely plan ahead and check the replacement transport as early as possible. You can head over to the NSW Transport website or call 131 500 for updates.
Anyway, I think that's all for me this week. Have a good weekend. Hopefully, this rain finally lifts the fog and we can all get out there. Thanks, and have a good week.
