The new Southern Cadia Access Road is up and running and is proving a popular way of travelling along the western fringe of the shire.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
However during the May Blayney Shire Council ordinary meeting, councillor Bruce Reynolds expressed concerns that the $500,000 blowout in the project's costs would have a negative impact on ratepayers, particularly on the roads that are left with substandard surfaces.
"This means a reduction in the reseal program of $151,000, a reduction of spending on the Hobby's Yards road work by $50,000, some culvert renewal work of $106,000 and another $193,000 from other general sources," he said.
READ MORE
"A lot of our ratepayers and motorists across the shire are travelling on what could be potentially lower standard roads than what they should be because that $151,000 would do several kilometres resealing of roads," Cr Reynolds said.
Cr Reynolds said that he was aware that with any project of this size cost overruns are to be expected and that the project had initially grown from $10.5 to $10.7 million, but he was now seeking an explanation as to how the project went so far over budget, totalling $11.2 million.
"I've been given the total sums, but no real indication of why it's blown out by an extra half a million dollars," he said.
Cr Reynolds added that he'd been reassured by the Director of Infrastructure Grant Baker during the December 2018 council meeting that the $10.54 million project would run close to budget.
Mr Baker said that councillors had been kept in the loop about the cost overruns.
"The additional volumes of material required to complete the works had an impact and there were a number of culverts that had to be replaced that we initially didn't intend to," he said.
"Totally justifiable" is how Blayney mayor Scott Ferguson described the overspend on what is the shire's biggest road project.
"The extra depth of gravel in some places ran for one kilometre, the extra work in the geo-tech that needed doing has meant that we now need to balance the books and spread it around a bit," he said.
"We have some extra grant funding coming in to help make up for a lot of that.
"It's less than five per cent of the total cost of the job and in any measure I think that's not bad considering the size of the project."
Mark Logan
Started working in newspapers in the 1990's in the darkroom of the Pastoral Times in Deniliquin before moving to Millthorpe in 2003. Soon after arriving I started as a photographer at the CWD. Now a journalist at the Blayney Chronicle.
Started working in newspapers in the 1990's in the darkroom of the Pastoral Times in Deniliquin before moving to Millthorpe in 2003. Soon after arriving I started as a photographer at the CWD. Now a journalist at the Blayney Chronicle.
