Susanna Freymark
The last Kyogle Council meeting before the September elections was held on Monday, August 12.
All councillors were at the meeting – mayor Kylie Webster, deputy mayor Tom Cooper, Maggie May, John Burley, Rob Cullen, Janet Wilson, Danielle Mulholland, Hayden Doolan and James Murray.
Below is a summary of the meeting. You can read the agenda here.
All council related stories can be read in one place here.
Bulmers Road aka the Goat Track
During the 2022 floods when there was a huge landslip on the Bruxner Highway on the Casino side of Mallanganee Range, Bulmers Road became an important thoroughfare. Bulmers Road is a skinny road and in parts barely fits two cars (hence the goat track name) and has lots of potholes.
Mr Murray wants the council to do a report and provide funding to make Bulmers Road more suitable as a detour road.
Bulmers Road is 19km long and the responsibility of the road is shared between Richmond Valley Council, National Parks and Wildlife Services and Kyogle Council.
Kyogle Council is responsible for maintaining 5.6km of the road in the section leading to the Mallanganee Lookout.
The narrowest and worst part is owned by NPWS.
Mr Murray said negotiations had been going on for seven years for Richmond Valley and Kyogle councils to take over the NPWS part of the road.
He wanted the council to write to the relevant ministers.
Acting general manager Chris White said there was a report that addressed this ownership.
“This impacts the Mallanganee Observatory project,” he said.
Acting Assets and Infrastructure manager Wayne Carter said the best way forward was to provide a report setting out the issues and then the council can decide if lobbying is required.
Dodgy bend on Clarence Way
Mr Murray pushed for cautionary road signage to be erected on Clarence Way between Martin’s Quarry and the MJ Smith depot near Woodenbong.
He said the corner is particularly dangerous and there had been several rollovers and many close calls shown by the skid marks on the road and leading off the corner.
Mr Carter said council staff could put up slow down signs but there were many curves on the road.
Mr Murray said more was needed.
“This corner has been a bad corner for years previous to the realignment of the road,” he said.
“When you come from the south the curve turns sharply and catches people out. Cars lose control.”
The problem was, if no one was hurt it was not reported to police, Mr Murray said.
Ms Mullholland asked several questions to clarify what Mr Murray wanted.
Ms Webster intervened and said it was against the Code of Conduct to speak for more than five minutes.
Ms Mullholland called – “Point of Order.”
“It’s about speaking more than once,” Ms Webster said.
It was a tense exchange between the mayor and Ms Mulholland.
The conversation moved back to the controversial road corner.
Mr Cooper said the area was susceptible to heavy fog.
“What about reflective signs with arrows,” he said.
Ms Wilson said the issue should be left to the new council (after the September 14 council elections).
We’re spending an awful lot of time debating this, we should go by what the professionals say, she said.
Ms May said it was perfectly valid for users of the road to make representation.
“This is not an ordinary corner,” Mr Cooper said.
“You can investigate the corner until the cows come home, this is a safety issue,” Mr Murray said.
After the lengthy and sometimes terse discussion, it was decided the council would write up a report about the dangerous corner and present it at the next council meeting which is after the election.
More questions on roads
Councillors can ask questions before the meeting so staff can respond. Here are some of those questions.
Mr Murray: When will maintenance grading would be carried out on Peacock Creek and Collins Valley roads?
Response: Peacock Creek Road is not scheduled for grading in 2024.
Mr Cooper: Will the rehabilitated sections of the Clarence Way from Woodenbong to Sandilands require a second seal for best practice within the next 24 months?
Response: All of the rehabilitated sections of the Clarence Way will receive a two coat seal.
Mr Carter said it might be days or weeks before a second coat is applied to the rehabilitated sections, depending on the resealing cycle.
New committee for business chamber
Ms Wilson and Mr Burley updated the council on the activities of the Kyogle and District Chamber of Commerce including the new committee.
They are:
President: Wendy Faradon
Vice president: Duncan Nichols
Secretary: Megan Hogan
Treasurer: Sonya Reeves
Committee members: Willa Scarrabelotti, Celinda Dooley, Sandii Davey and Ross Brown.
What has the council done this term 2021–2024
Read the End of Term Report here.
Here are some of the achievements listed in the report:
● Replaced 84 timber bridges.
● Electric charging stations for cars were installed at Kyogle, Woodenbong, Bonalbo and Tabulam.
● Improvement work at Kyogle Shooting Rnage bringing it up to Olympic standard.
● Amendment of the Kyogle Local Environment Plan 2012 to allow rural property owners to diversify how they use their agricultural land to include agritourism, farm stays, and farmgate experiences. The LEP was also amended to allow land to be rezoned for housing for older residents.
● Designs were completed for sewerage schemes in Tabulam, Wiangaree and Mallanganee.
● Funding was secured for Richmond River restoration work next to Moore Park Recreation Reserve.
● Patched more than 159,000 potholes in 2021–23
● More than 3800 tonnes of materials were recycled, reducing the amount of waste being sent to landfill by 32.7%.
● Six evacuation centres in the LGA were funded for improvements.
● A grant was received for the council to prepare a business case for reticulated water at Tabulam.
● Floodplain Risk Management Plans were adopted for Tabulam and Bonalbo.
● Masterplans were adopted for Kyogle’s main street and Woodenbong town centre.
● Bonalbo got an aeration fountain and platform at its pond, Tabulam Racecourse got new change rooms for jockeys, Woodenbong got a new footpath, Tabulam got a soft fall playground for children and Mallanganee Oval has new surface and new lights.
● Funded the Kyogle Cane Toad Bust and a facilitator for the Kyogle Koala Symposium.
● Youth events in Kyogle, Bonalbo and Muli Muli were supported by the council.
● There were 31 exhibitions at the Roxy Gallery.
● The upgrade of the KMI Hall was completed.
● In 2023, the council met all of its renewable energy targets, seven years ahead of schedule. This was done through the installation of solar panels at council operated facilities.
● A new three-bin waste collection service was put into place.
There is plenty more information about what the council did in this last term in the report.
This was the final meeting of Kyogle council for this term. When meetings return, there will be a new group of people (possibly with some familiar faces) sitting at the table ready to serve the next term of council.
Here are the candidates running in the election for Kyogle Council.
And yet more road information
Below is information about ongoing works from the Kyogle Council’s Facebook page
Grading of Knights Road commenced and was expected to be completed by the end of this week. However, progress has been delayed due to the grader being unable to operate in the wet conditions experienced this week. Once Knights Road is completed, the crew is expected to move on to Bolan Road.
Girders and deck for the new bridge on Duck Creek Road have been installed. The bridge is expected to open to traffic this week.
Piling work continues on the new bridge on Paddys Flat Road, about 28km from Bruxner Highway. The northern working slab was poured on Monday, July 12 and the cage has been placed on the northern slab, ready for the northern abutment to be poured.
Progress on the new bridge on Risk Road has been hampered by the weather, with the river rising over the working area for the centre pier. In the meantime, the crew has built shutters for the centre pier.
Geotechnical drilling has been carried out at bridge sites on Paddys Flat Road and Birney Bridge on Williams Road. The culvert crew has been attending to various tasks around the Council area, including tidying up bridge sites and erosion protection.
Work on restoration of the Boorabee Creek Road landslip started in June and is expected to be completed by late August.
About 5 km from the intersection with Hillyard Road, some patching and resealing will be done in the next fortnight under flood restoration work.
Work on the Theresa Creek Road landslip is expected to be finished by late August. The embankment reconstruction is substantially complete, with pavement drainage and reconstruction due next week, pending weather conditions. This will be followed by repairs to open drains, rock scour, and fencing.
The work on the Gabal Road landslip is nearly complete, with only fence reinstatement remaining.
Work has started on the Main Creek Road landslip and is expected to continue until late November.
Installation of three large culverts on Omagh Road culverts began in mid-July and is scheduled to be completed by the end of September.
The road construction project on Anzac Drive at the railway underpass began on July 23, with an expected completion date around the end of September.
There are four road construction crews currently working to rehabilitate Clarence Way. They are presently located at Culmaran Creek and at sites north of Bonalbo, north of Old Bonalbo, and north of Mills Road.
and then