Paul Bibby
The ongoing saga over the notorious intersection at Clifford Street, Suffolk Park has taken another chaotic turn, with plans to spend state government grant funding on a pedestrian crossing being rejected.
The attempt to address the safety and traffic congestion issues at the junction of Clifford Street and Broken Head Road has been going on for decades, with Byron Council exploring various options including a roundabout, traffic lights, and, most recently, a combination of a pedestrian crossing and refuges.
Earlier this year the Council backflipped on plans to install traffic lights at the troubled spot following a loud and concerted community campaign against this.
Having already successfully applied for a grant from Transport for NSW (TfNSW) to install the lights, Council then found itself in the difficult position of needing to request a variation of its grant application.
It has now emerged that this request, which involved using the grant money on a pedestrian crossing and two pedestrian refuges on Broken Head Road, has been rejected by TfNSW.
Transport for NSW found that the revised plan ‘did not address the intersection safety and traffic flow concerns outlined in the original funding application’.
The Council now finds itself in the even more difficult position of either returning to the traffic lights option or doing nothing at the site until it can secure the funds and extra land needed to build a roundabout.
Substandard option
The local community group which spearheaded the campaign against the traffic lights, Keep the Flow in Suffo, said that for Council to even be considering traffic lights contradicted its own resolution from March.
‘The Council voted to “cease pursuing the implementation of a signalised intersection at Clifford Street” and we expect them to uphold that resolution,’ a spokesperson for the group told The Echo last week.
‘The majority of the community continues to reject the idea of traffic lights in Suffolk Park. We don’t support spending state or federal government grant money on a substandard option simply because the money is there. The Council and all levels of government can do better.
‘The Council’s latest staff report largely ignores the overwhelming evidence from their earlier commissioned Metis report that showed traffic lights are the worst possible option for the intersection in terms of traffic flow.’
Lights please
But other Suffolk Park residents feel that traffic lights would be the best option and are calling for Council to return to this plan.
‘Most of the concerns raised about the lights were negated by a supplementary Metis report dated 25 February 2025, a vital response that councillors received just days before their final decision in March to abandon the grant project,’ local resident Liz Levy said.
‘The latest report to Council suggests that updated, compliant plans for a roundabout are likely to involve an even larger footprint, meaning Council’s ability to fund land acquisition is even further out of reach than over the two-three decades that previous such projects have failed. It will also mean the destruction of even more native vegetation.
‘A conventional roundabout in the near future is so improbable that to reject alternatives on this wishful thinking is a highly irresponsible gamble.’
The matter will be voted on at this week’s Council meeting.
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