THE SANDFORD AVENUE BRIDGE: Council is not impressed with the standard of the RailCorp ‘upgrade’. Photo; LEN ASHWORTH lm081512LAsandfordave
THE ‘upgrade’ carried out by RailCorp on Lithgow’s Sandford Avenue railway bridge has been described in Lithgow City Council as ‘cheap, nasty and terrible’.
After decades of complaints in the community regarding the condition of the bridge the NSW Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian announced the bridge was to be upgraded.Council was subsequently told it would have to pay half of the $25,000 cost but had no response from RailCorp when seeking information about what work was planned/
Council found out the hard way on Saturday when workmen spent the day on the bridge but did nothing more than replace the wire mesh on the fences.
And our civic leaders are not impressed.
But it was not just railway authorities in the firing line.
Councillors were also highly critical of another ‘upgrade’, this time carried out by Roads and Maritime Services (the former RTA) on the Castlereagh Highway on the western side of Tunnel Hill.
The standard of the work on this section of road revived memories of a major upgrade on the other side of Tunnel Hill a few years ago when a new surface had to be torn up and re-done a short time later.
At that time the problem was blamed on a bad batch of hotmix.
Council will lodge a complaint with the RMS.