Road reconstruction works are scheduled to begin in early November on two sections of Lansdowne Road.
The first section is between Moto Road and the Lansdowne River and the other is near Langley Vale Road. Both of these projects will be done in stages and completion is expected in March 2026.
Timeframes for both the start and end of the project will depend on the weather. There will be no construction during the Christmas period, and the road will remain open to traffic. The last day of construction work will be Friday 19 December and crews will start back in the new year on Tuesday 6 Jan 2026, weather permitting.
The road pavement on both sections will be reconstructed and include drainage works, widening, spray sealing and line marking.
The road will be reduced to one lane under traffic control at times. This will unavoidably create some traffic delays, but every effort will be made to keep the delays as minimal as possible. Where houses front the roadwork, Council will be working proactively to give driveway access to impacted residents. Affected residents will receive notification in their letterbox.
The latest works on Lansdowne Road are part of Council's capital works program and are jointly funded by The Australian and NSW Governments under the Regional Roads and Transport Recovery Package (referred to as Betterment Funding).
Director of Infrastructure and Engineering Services, Rob Scott, said that the Grant funding has facilitated significant upgrades to a number of sections of Lansdowne Road that would not have otherwise been possible.
"The improved sections have held up during the May flood event," said Mr Scott.
"The upgraded sections of Lansdowne Road are providing improved connectivity and safety for residents in our community."
A report on works undertaken on Lansdowne Road since 2019 was tabled at the 22 October Council meeting. The report discussed the importance of Lansdowne Road as a 23km local connection providing access from the Upper, Central and Lansdowne areas to the Pacific Highway or nearby Cundletown / Taree and as a detour route for the Pacific Highway when incidents occur.
Lansdowne Road has undergone a range of treatments over the past five years, including a full reconstruction of eight sections; major maintenance - stabilisation followed by bitumen sealing of six sections; heavy patching in selected areas of two sections; and pothole patching to various older road sections. The 2025 assessment completed in August has shown a marked ride quality improvement of 13.4% based on roughness counts. This is despite the challenges of the May 2025 flood event.
Reconstruction is the most significant investment in a road and is only done when other treatments are no longer effective. Council's aim is to avoid roads getting to this stage by acting earlier where possible. Reconstruction of a sealed road costs over $1 million per kilometre. The 2025-26 budget allocated $49.93 million for capital works on the road network. There are over 3,600km of road in the MidCoast network. Council relies on government funding to upgrade roads.
You can find the MidCoast Road Strategy and other related information at http://www.midcoast.nsw.gov.au/roadshub
