The Bermagui Community Forum held the session and panellists from the BVSC included Mayor Russell Fitzpatrick, Anthony McMahon, Alice Howe and councillor Cathy Griff.

It was facilitated by Sheena Boughen, who said she had engaged with more than 60 stakeholders in the months following council's decision in March to demolish the bridge.

Mr McMahon said the council had been advocating for funding for various timber bridges since 2017. With 50 of the shire's 200 bridges being timber, the yearly maintenance budget of around $400,000 was insufficient.

After receiving a funding offer of $7million in the in the state government's $500million Fixing Country Bridges program, the council decided to demolish and build a concrete bridge as per funding rules.

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However with council unable to meet a two-year delivery date, the government withdrew funding and indicated it would help council apply for future funding subject to an unknown release date.

"The resolution of council as it stands is still to move forward with the demolition of the timber bridge and replace it with a two lane concrete bridge, but we don't currently have any funding source," Mr McMahon said.

Community members expressed concerns about the prospect of increased heavy vehicles and accidents, the lack of consultation, consideration for the slow life values of the community, and sourcing new funding.

Project manager for Timber Restoration Services David Maggiolo flew from Brisbane to present an alternative idea to Wednesday's public forum on the future of Cuttagee Bridge.

For Cuttagee, which has been listed on the local heritage register since 2009, he said it was entirely possible for the company to reinforce and revitalise the timber bridge.

The project would utilise existing and new materials as well as innovative new technology to give the bridge a new lease on life.

"When I saw a picture of Cuttagee it made me think, I think we can do this. But I had to go and look, hence why I'm not wearing my flash pants," he said.

Before the meeting he made his initial assessment on the bridge and believed that the bridge could "definitely be restored using timber that would be structurally sound and economically advantageous". Mr Maggiolo presented different options with the most effective, but most expensive, being to use treated engineered glulam with a 100-year design life and very little maintenance.

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He paralleled Cuttagee to the TRS project on South Arm Bridge in the Byron Shire with the total cost being around $1.5million when the initial estimate for a concrete bridge was around $3.6million.

Funding for that project came from council, commonwealth, and state.

"Through government you've got multiple tiers to work through, there's the Fixing Country Bridges Program, there's a Bridges Renewal Program, then there's a Building Better Regions Fund, and you've got to hit into those state and federal programs."

He said although seeking funding in these ways can and has been done, "it is not a fast program".

Mr Maggiolo gave a rough costing estimate based on the South Arm Bridge project and his first visit to Cuttagee. Byron Shire's bridge was 6.3m by 63m and an arbitrary cost per square metre was roughly $3800.

Cuttagee Bridge is 4.2m by 100m, so this rudimentary comparison would give a total of approximately $1.6m. However, without properly assessing the superstructure (deck) and substructure (poles), Mr Maggiolo said it would be impossible to have the exact pricing at this early stage.

Based on his first impressions of the bridge, Mr Maggiolo said TRS could make it carry up to 100 tonnes, a steep increase from its current load capacity of 22.5 tonnes.

The forum offered two motions that were passed unanimously. The first being that council support a timber restoration and rescind its demolition order, and a second calling for the state government to include timber in its criteria for public works. A third motion was proposed and passed for council to explore other funding options.

Mr McMahon said the council would continue to consult with the community and form a community advisory group to assess the positions of other stakeholders.