An amendment made by councillor Bruce Reynolds, and passed by Crs Scott Denton, John Newstead and deputy mayor David Kingham, will see Blayney council having to re-work their draft 2018/19 delivery program and operational plan, a draft which was passed earlier on in the two hour long May ordinary council meeting.

Cr Reynolds’ amendment will mean that council will need to either find or borrow $750,000 in the next financial year’s budget to build the bridge, a notion that did not sit well with mayor Scott Ferguson and councillors Ewin and Somervaille.

“Do you think that it’s fair and reasonable to put a number of $750,000 in front of the councillors here tonight without any plans or options that have been put to them?,” Cr Ferguson asked.

“What if it’s $900,000, what if it’s $400,000, what if it’s $1.2 million?

“Are you asking councillors to make a decision tonight to commit this organisation to another $750,000 that hasn’t been recognised in the current operational plan and hasn’t been recognised in the future delivery plan?

Cr Ferguson said that everyone supported the bridge being re-opened and council had even begun the process of planning for its eventual construction.

“This council has been prepared, from our workshops, to agree with what you are putting up, to demolish the bridge, undertake the geo-technical investigations and come back to us in April of next year with proper plans, proper costings and to give us all the opportunities to look at the options, then put that number and those plans into the next operational plan,” he said

“With my first reading of this, I certainly can’t support this. It’s too disruptive to our current draft delivery plan.”

Cr Reynolds defended his amendment stating that all that had been adopted was a draft delivery plan, and by its nature could be changed.

“I just wish to clarify that it is a draft operational plan and in fact can be modified, that it is only the draft being put up for public consultation,” he said.

Supporter of the amendment David Kingham believes that $750,000 is a reasonable estimation of the cost of any bridge being built.

“The cost could be anywhere from $450,000 to $2 million and although $750,000 may not be the actual number, this process has to begin.” 

Cr Somervaille expressed his desire to see the bridge built, but opposed the short time-frame that was being presented to councillors on making a decision, particularly the lack of detail on how it should be funded.

“I think is just poor practice and poor governance to be making a decision now without a report on whether this is a piece of infrastructure that ought to be financed by loans or whether it should be financed by changing our other priorities around,” he said

“The appropriate way to proceed is to decide the preferred option of the bridge, then decide how we’re going to fund it, and then how it’s going to be built.

“To be making a decision like this, on the fly, is frankly irresponsible of councillors.”

General manager Rebecca Ryan said that there were more than just the financial implications of adding $750,000 to the draft operational plan.

“I just do not have the human resources to undertake the time-frame that is there,” she said.

“It takes twelve months to design a bridge and work out which bridge you’re going to start with, so even if there was $750,000 in the budget I doubt if we could even draw one cent of it if before we could complete the designs and the tender process.”

In wrapping up, Cr Reynolds said that council had already borrowed $3 million to fix six bridges and it was time to steam ahead.

“The community wants this bridge opened and Carcoar needs to have this bridge opened so the community and business will benefit.”