$1m funds switch to fix Woodburn-Coraki Road

A federal government grant of $1m to upgrade Richmond Terrace at Coraki will now be used to improve the heavily used Woodburn-Coraki Road following a request from the Richmond Valley Council.

Page MP Kevin Hogan said the council had initially nominated Richmond Terrace as part of a $2million package to fix a number of local roads across the northern rivers however the council asked late last year to re-allocate the funds to accelerate the repair of the Woodburn-Coraki road.

‘The council were concerned that given the large amount of construction traffic using this road during the duplication of the Pacific Highway, its condition, which is already poor, would quickly deteriorate even further,’ Mr Page said.

‘The safety of motorists is always my first concern and I agreed to take the issue up with the Minister, who agreed to re-allocate the funds.

‘The council has told me that they have an alternative plan to improve Richmond Terrace.’

The $1 million grant will be matched by Richmond Valley Council.

Meanwhile, Mr Hogan’s offices in Lismore and Grafton have been awarded The Electorate Office of the Year by the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

‘I would like to congratulate my office staff. They work very hard to follow up on all requests made to the office. I thank and congratulate them on the award,’ Mr Hogan said.

He said the annual award was determined by how well an office responded to enquires from members of the community.

The Award also recognises the second electorate office in Grafton paid out of Mr Hogan’s salary, in addition to his Government-funded office in Lismore.

‘Page is an extremely large electorate so the first thing I did when I was elected in 2013 was to pay for a second office in Grafton myself,” he said.

‘I did this because I believe that members of our community should be fully represented and have easy access to myself and my staff no matter where they live.’