MidCoast Council
Initial investigations have revealed The Bight Bridge will likely not be operational again until 2028 or 2029.
MidCoast Council is striving to cut that date back by streamlining the design and planning stages and working closely with the State and Federal Governments through the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements.
However, Council's Director of Engineering Services and Infrastructure, Rob Scott, said the difficulty at this stage is in determining exactly what will be built and where under the funding guidelines.
"While we know how to build a bridge the design standards for bridges have changed significantly since the 1960's meaning that what was there may not be acceptable to be simply replaced," he said.
"Even testing remaining parts of the bridge to check they are capable of being reused is not a simple straightforward process. It's going to take time and still may not arrive at firm conclusion.
"It's really a catch 22. To be able to access the funding to reinstate the bridge we have to be able to provide detailed information on what we are proposing and the likely costs. All of that will hinge on costly and time-consuming investigation of the remaining bridge, which might not give us all the answer we need anyway.
"So, we could go ahead and spend the money and time on that, only to find out the rest of the bridge is compromised anyway.
"And then we would have to start going through the process of designing and planning a new bridge."
Mr Scott said the ideal outcome would be to work collaboratively with the other levels of government to minimise risks to the project whilst reducing the time it will take to reinstate the bridge crossing for the community.
"In our opinion it's the commonsense approach here," he explained.
"There is a strong case for a new bridge, but this needs to be considered against the other options in terms of risks, time and cost factors. We are working on finalising an assessment of the options to aid in this consideration."
In any case, Mr Scott said Council was working on the processes involved with the aim of reducing the expected delivery date of the reconnection.
"We understand what this bridge means to the community, and we are working hard to bring that expected timeline back," he said.
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