It may be due to a sweet ignorance that I resist an authority saying that something is ‘too difficult’, or even ‘impossible’.
I was originally told that putting an essential roundabout in at the junction of Byron Street and the Coast Road at the northern entry to Lennox Head would be ‘impossible’, until funding would finally become available in 2035, (still ten years from now!).
If we had accepted that argument, we still would likely have a life-threatening ‘T’ intersection at that road junction today… not to mention the delays to traffic flow that would have continued to become worse and worse, as a result of the extraordinary increasing volume of usage.
Instead, at that time, I suggested that a ‘temporary roundabout’ could be constructed as an immediate stop-gap measure, until the required permanent infrastructure was eventually built. This is what happened.
So similarly, in my naive simplicity, I ask the question… after many, many years, why do we still ask ‘is Ross Lane open?’ each time it rains?
This disruption to traffic is occurring once again today. The waters at Deadman’s Creek slowly rise from the edges to the centre of the roadway, until traffic can no longer pass from Lennox Head to the highway. Ross Lane, our most direct lifeline, is cut off. This is often for extended periods, even with minimal flooding.
Reading back on the history of the issue I hear reference to shared government agencies having vested responsibilities that complicate the solutions. There is potential for local property inundation, acid sulphate issues, short- and long-term studies of variable flood levels, arguments about feasibility studies… etc, etc. The excuses go on year after year. The problem remains. It is suggested that maybe there will be something towards the end of 2025? Maybe not?
For a reasonably cheap cost ($300-$500,000 more or less perhaps?), I ask why can we not just install a permanent low-profile steel beam and gridwork elevated bridge that spans that usual, repeatedly problematic stretch. That way, for the majority of time, Ross Lane remains open? Cars can always traverse above any potential flooding.
The bridge could be cheap and nasty but serviceable. It could have a gentle ramp at each end. It would be non-obstructive of the flow of Deadman’s Creek at low inundation, (by virtue of its ‘open’ and elevated structure). Water could always continue to flow beneath. There would be minimal impediment to flow. There would be no neighbouring property inundation, due to nil-to-minimal roadworks impacting the flow.
A damned simple solution for all minor flooding it seems to me. Traffic continues to flow.
East and west are not divided!
We need more of those simple solutions in the world these days I think.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
