COFFS Harbour Mayoral candidate Tony Judge and the Labor Council Team have criticised the NSW Government for its lack of progress on the highly anticipated Coffs Harbour Bypass project.

Mr Judge and the Labor Council Team are calling for an urgent update on the Pacific Highway Bypass project timetable to keep Coffs Harbour residents and businesses in the picture.

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“The bypass will be a major change that will affect Council, residents and businesses,” Mr Judge said.

“We need to plan and prepare for the initial disruption, the economic impact on businesses and the new opportunities that will come from reduced through traffic in Coffs Harbour.

“However, the seemingly endless delays and lack of updates on progress make planning impossible and create stress for everyone who will be impacted by the bypass.”

Mr Judge contrasted past bold State Government announcements about the project with this year’s lack of progress.

“There are glossy advertisements from the NSW Government about the bypass,” he stated.

“There were announcements of Federal funding; there were even photos last year of smiling local MPs with shovels.

“What’s missing is any concrete action towards building the bypass.”

State Member for Coffs Harbour Gurmesh Singh was astounded by these claims and was quick to reassure the community that the Coffs Harbour Bypass project was on track.

“Where the RFS station was where we did the sod turnover that’s nearly complete, that’s due for handover basically any day now,” Mr Singh stated.

“Work is exactly where it’s meant to be, all you have to do is go out and have a look and see where the work has actually been done.”

Mr Singh said quite extensive work has been undertaken at Coramba Road including water and sewer works, and stated that tendering for the Bypass project was “ongoing” and each individual tender required different people to undertake different parts of the project.

“The tendering is an ongoing process because the people who did the water are different to the people who are going to do the heavy earthworks,” Mr Singh stressed.

“Procurement is ongoing and it will continue all the way through the five-year process.”

News Of The Area questioned Mr Singh about whether environmental issues around West Coffs were holding up progress on the Bypass project.

“There’s ongoing stuff that they’re dealing with, things like Panama Disease and the spread of that, but that’s all part of the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement),” Mr Singh replied.

The Coffs Harbour Bypass will be the town’s biggest ever infrastructure project, which will support 12,000 jobs over the lifecycle of the project.

The 14-kilometre bypass will take more than 12,000 vehicles a day out of the centre of Coffs Harbour, reduce travel times by as much as twelve minutes and improve safety for road users.

By Emma DARBIN