At Tuesday evening’s Lismore Council meeting, Councillor Big Rob asked Council to support a motion to contact Transport for NSW and Janelle Saffin MP requesting a process to remove the Terania Street rail bridge as soon as possible so that Terania Street can be reopened permanently.
Councillor Rob’s comments were that the imposition of a main road closure in North Lismore so soon after businesses struggling to recover after the 2022 floods have reopened is unacceptable. ‘It is likely most will not survive the indefinite closure of Terania Street. Add to this the hassle residents will face and it is clear we need to find a permanent solution as soon as possible.’
‘It has long been known that the railway bridge crossing Terania Street is in a bad way. The centre lanes have been blocked for some time without any progress on repairing the structure.
‘We continue to hear that heritage listing is the issue but we also know that such structures can be removed in many circumstances. The recent demolition of the longest single-span timber bridge in the southern hemisphere at Tabulam is a recent example.
The danger railway bridges pose during flooding
‘Of significant importance is the danger many of our railway bridges pose when we are flooding. Search and rescue operations are often hampered for hours while rescuers wait for the flood levels to rise high enough to skull drag a boat over the railway line, or drop low enough again so they can manoeuvre under it. In the most flood affected area in the country, this is such an absurd problem to have.
‘Trains have not operated on these railway bridges for many years, they are not being maintained, they are falling apart, they pose a risk to public safety, and they are now destroying businesses and making life difficult for residents.
‘It is time our problem railway bridges were removed.’
Cr Electra Jensen said that Andy Parks on behalf of the Floodplain Risk Management Committee is dealing directly with Transport for NSW in relation to trying to get the process of having these removed faster or fixed faster than currently Transport seems to think it’s going to take. ‘There is something in the back blocks, slowly moving along. So we are sort of trying to address it.’
Bing speaks!
Cr Andrew Bing said he wanted to propose an amendment to Councillor Rob’s motion. ‘I’d like to get all the bridges removed. All of them. Yep.’
Cr Rob said he was very happy to take that on board.
Cr Jeri Hall said she felt it was important to prioritise the Terania St Bridge. ‘Given my occupation as a bus operator, I would also like it to be noted that when when Winterton Parade (North Lismore) is removed, it needs to be on a weekend or in the school holidays given the amount of school buses that travel through to Woodlawn College.’
Cr Andrew Gordon wanted to remind people that not only was it a safety concern, there’s business, there’s problems. ‘The service station there is 50 per cent down and they’re starting to put staff off. So, safety yes, is a prime consideration, but also the existing business that is being adversely affected.’
There are many views
Cr Vanessa Ekins spoke against the motion. ‘It’s like many problems, there are many views.
‘While I totally appreciate that the bridges are in a state of decline and they have not been maintained as they should be, and that there was some concern during flood rescues that they were an impediment to rescue boats, I just like to speak for the bridges because they are heritage constructions – they are certainly give character to the town – they’re beautiful to look at and it’s a damn shame that the property holders or the people the organisation responsible, which of the contractors to the Department of Transport, have failed to maintain them adequately.
‘I’d also like to say that there is a rail trail that could potentially use those bridges and crossings. Rather than having them removed and they have to come off that and cross roads in front of cars, and, there is also a possibility of some kind of light rail coming back to the area that could utilise those tracks.
Traffic calming devices
‘The other thing I wanted to say was they are actually very significant traffic calming devices. It really does slow traffic on very, very busy roads. So you can imagine people just honing down Terania Street and Union Street without having to slow down and negotiate those narrow bridges.
‘I think we’ll we’ll come across some real problems when those bridges grow in terms of traffic movement along those roads.’
Cr Peter Colby said that though the bridges had heritage listing, if we want to move forward with the city and particularly with a rail trail or even a light rail in the future, the bridges would not be suitable. ‘They’re going to have to be replaced whether,’ he said. ‘Whether they’re replaced with something that actually looks right, that has a bit of heritage to it?
We need clarity
‘I support the motion that we move forward. I think we do it with some sort of clarity and I support a motion that we actually do the first two and then look at the next. But ultimately at the end of the day, they will have to be replaced if they’re going to be used for anything other than what they are now, which is a heritage listed something that looks nice.
The motion was put to the vote – Those in favour of supporting the motion as printed were Councillors Guise, Gordon, Hall, Jensen, Bing, Rob and Krieg. Those opposed were Councillors Colby, Bird and Ekins – the motion was carried.
I work as a town planner in the area, I think there has been a very important factor omitted from this conversation.
I have friends and also clients in north and south Lismore who want to move their house after the NRRC buy-back, and these railway bridges are preventing a lot of people moving forward with this process of relocating their dwellings, some of them have already resigned to not relocate their dwelling because of the complications of moving the dwelling, one of the main ones being these railway bridges are a physical road block to moving these houses.
The only real feasible way at the moment for people to move their house from north Lismore is via Winterton Parade bridge, but that only provides access to the east. In other directions say to Nimbin or Kyogle or Dunoon or Casino, these railway bridges are blocking the easy routes or making it too expensive to relocate because the houses need to be dismantled into smaller sections.
It will roughly cost $60,000 – $100,000 to relocate a dwelling locally, even just up the road, which is borderline economically feasible when also factoring in land prices, planning costs and other building costs and the buy-back money.
It is paramount that we remove these railway bridges if we are serious about getting these houses relocated, isn’t that the priority over bridge heritage considerations? are these old houses not contributing to heritage more if we keep them in the area instead of knocking them down over a few old railway bridges?
I don’t know how this was not 100% voted by all councillors to remove these bridges and this should be done as soon as we can, to help these people recover from post-flood. Sometimes we can’t win everything but we have to prioritise the important things.
Thanks to those who voted to proceed, those impacted people now have more options to consider moving their flood homes and we can potentially save some more of these old homes.
I have to say, Luke , I do admire your courage in admitting you are a ‘town planner’.
With recent events indelibly highlighting, the gross incompetence of all current and previous ‘town planners’ most of the ‘profession’ would recognise the fact that their opinions would be greeted with less credibility than the ‘Aboriginal wish list from Ayers Rock’, that is just a self-serving, desperate attempt to appear relevant after decades of incompetence.
Oh yeah, ! just destroy the hard-earned infrastructure that stands in the way of ameliorating the massive damage caused by you and your colleague’s total disregard for the inevitable catastrophe of NO planning and NO understanding of the effects of The Levee, which magnified the damage caused when the inevitable, and warned against overtopping occurred.
No planning and NO responsibility. Cheers, G”)
We often also try to resolve that issue behind the scenes. I and others just seem to have forgotten to mention it when debating on the night. It is definitely something we have been working on.
That’s Lismore Council for you, all they are any good at is destruction of anything decent.
Cheers, G”)
Rail Trail designers evaluate the viability of all existing structures. In many cases, old timber bridges have simply seen their days out.
Timber beams, from single trees felled well over 100 years ago, notoriously have cracks formed over this time, that have allowed rain to deeply penetrate and rot internally, presenting engineering impossibilities without major reconstruction, which usually rights them off.
Rail Trails often go alongside such structures, with the responsibility that users are not in any danger of any falling members of the historic structures.
Any funds spent on the Terania Street bridge, would very likely be wasted over time.
The best heritage outcome in this opinion, is to remove the central spans and leave the approaches as historical monuments.
The Rail Trail will likely adopt an island refuge in the center of the Terania Street crossing.
You do not need to go under the Terania Creek bridge to move yr house to Nimbin or Kyogle….easily go over the Humpty Dumpty Bridge up to Nimbin,same with Kyogle…up past Hillside and towards Bentley!…keep the Bridges…Vanessa’s right…it calms the traffic and we need it for the Rail Trail!