BATHURST Regional Council has been urged to expedite efforts to build a new river crossing, with concerns growing over the congestion from new housing estates.
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Councillor Monica Morse tried to get the plans prioritised with a notice of motion to council's meeting in April.
The motion requested that "a report be prepared on the options for an additional crossing of the Macquarie River", and council ultimately resolved to do so.
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Cr Morse said the idea could no longer sit idle and council had to be "seen to be doing something concrete".
"While we've talked about it and said 'Yes, we must do this', we haven't actually taken that step to do something concrete," she said.
"... The community is not aware of anything definite happening and that's the feedback I get from a lot of places. There's a very big increase in the number of houses on the Kelso side of the river, the numbers of subdivisions that have been approved, the number of houses that are going to be built - there's possibly another 2000 houses that are going to be built on that side of the river: 2000 houses, at least 2000 cars.
"And I think we have come to the time where this council needs to say, 'Yes, we want a report, we'll look at the options of how to go about getting an additional crossing of the river'.
"... We need to actually start doing something concrete and to be seen to be doing something concrete. We've all talked about it, and we've discussed it at working parties, but this is to take it to the next step."
While calls for another river crossing have been coming for years, planning is still very much in its infancy.
Director of Environmental, Planning and Building Services, Neil Southorn, said an additional river crossing is a concept in the Local Strategic Planning Statement.
The suggested route would see the new crossing connect to Bradwardine Road.
"It is important to note that it is a concept at this stage, the route an indicative one that needs further testing for feasibility, traffic impacts and community acceptance," Mr Southorn said.
"In addition, the timing of an additional river crossing to service growth on the eastern part of the city will depend on how rapidly land is made available on western parts. In the interim, improvements to the existing Hereford Street corridor are also being planned."
He said that, should council agree to pursue the concept, the next step will be to do a more detailed route assessment, requiring modelling of the impacts of a new route on the local traffic network, geotechnical analysis, flood impact modelling and related planning activities.
"This is necessary to enable the cost to be estimated and therefore the feasibility of the project," he said.
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