Wyndham residents have expressed their concerns over the condition of New Buildings Road after heavy rainfalls over the last few weeks left the road significantly deteriorated, with one resident even reporting damage to her vehicle.
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Bega Valley Shire Council said it identified the damages to the road in late March, with reports sent to the council's Infrastructure and Services team who have been in charge of responding to the recent flood events across the shire.
A council spokesperson said traffic lights and warnings signs were put in place as immediate measures as it was far too wet for substantial repair works to take place.
As a result of the continual wet weather and limited contractor availability, the council said repair works were unable to start before the Easter long weekend.
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However, another more recent inspection revealed the serious deterioration and state of the road, with the council re-tasking a local contractor from an existing job to New Buildings Road for emergency works on Tuesday, April 20.
Resident Deborah Jeffs, who lives along New Buildings Road, said Wyndham residents would consider it a "fairly main road" due to the fact it connects Wyndham to the communities of New Buildings and Rocky Hall.
Ms Jeffs lives about four kilometres from the Wyndham General Store and said there were a number of dangerous patches between her property and Mount Darragh Road
"I don't know what it's like for people further up," she said.
She said it was understandable the surface of the road had disintegrated to the point it had given how many flooding events had occurred in recent years, as well as bushfires that destroyed nearby vegetation and housing.
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"It's bitumen all the way along New Buildings Road now, but the last floods of March washed all the surface away in many sections and the potholes have just gotten worse and worse," she said.
According to Ms Jeff, there has also been a lot of additional traffic on the road in recent times, with large trucks and trailers now using the road.
She presumed the influx of traffic was due to the closure of Big Jack Mountain Road after a landslide.
"We just feel like we're forgotten out here because we're rural, but I think if council put a count on New Buildings Road they would be surprised about how much traffic that it gets," Ms Jeff said.
Ms Jeff claimed her car was recently damaged while making her way from her property to an appointment in Pambula.
"I had to drive through the bog holes and I heard the car scraping but I didn't realise until after my appointment when I got to the car and the whole bottom sill from one wheel to the other was gone," she said.
Council said they hoped drainage works and temporary road repairs to the most damaged sections of the road would be completed by Friday, April 22, but acknowledged additional works would need to be carried out the following week, weather permitting.
"We feel like if we were down the coast it would have been done before Easter," Ms Jeff said.
"We're used to being patient out here, because things don't get done quickly, but it's getting to the stage where it's getting hard for you to even go anywhere."
Council said it had been experiencing a large backlog of work due to staff on leave over Easter and the school holiday period.
It had also experienced a significant amount of residents reporting both minor and major issues following the rain and flooding events, but was endeavouring to get back to residents in a timely fashion.
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