Bermagui's Cuttagee Bridge upgrade goes to design stage after robust council debate

Gippsland-based engineers Chris O’Brien and Company have won the tender to provide design services for the Cuttagee Bridge renewal project.

Bega Valley Shire Council voted to accept the company’s tender, adding specific guidance to ensure the new design includes substantive timber elements and considers the established character of the bridge in its environment.

At the public forum ahead of the council meeting on 16 April (Wednesday), three residents told the council they were concerned the design brief neglected timber except for ”decorative” elements and would produce designs for essentially three concrete bridges. They wanted a clear definition of a heritage hybrid bridge for the designers.

The actual tender document was confidential.

The three options to be considered in the $15 million funding deed between the council and the NSW Government for a bridge in line with heritage principles are a one-lane hybrid, two-lane hybrid, and two-lane concrete bridge.

The residents were also concerned that the tender was being accepted before the results of the council’s Have Your Say survey were assessed. The survey closes on 30 April.

At the public forum, resident Geoff Steel said the brief appeared highly skewed towards concrete designs. He said the findings of the Cuttagee Bridge Community Advisory Group presented to the council in March 2022 “appear to have been largely ignored in this tender”.

Barragga Bay resident Ken Robinson made similar comments. Councillor Mitchell Nadin asked him for his interpretation of decorative.

“In my previous life, we had an expression ‘putting lipstick on a pig’. It is token and not reflective of the bridge’s aesthetics.”

Former councillor and deputy mayor Cathy Griff spoke in support of having three clear options so that the council could say it had genuinely looked at comparisons.

Cr Helen O’Neil asked Mr Robinson and Mr Steel how important it was to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the three options, as required by the funding deed, to arrive at a good decision before construction began.

Mr Robinson said it should not be based on financial considerations alone, but also environmental and social factors.

Mr Steel said if the cost-benefit analysis was of three concrete bridges, it would add to the delays.

”We need three meaningful options, not three concrete options.”

During the council meeting that followed, the council’s director, assets and infrastructure Ian Macfarlane said the key point of the document was not heritage, but meeting Transport for NSW’s standards to build a bridge of a certain type.

“I would suggest in that environment it would be concrete or steel to meet the standards of that deed. We don’t want to replace anything structural for 100 years,” he said.

Cr O’Neil asked what traffic volume information had been given to the designers because that would be relevant to the design options of one or two lanes, and how it looked.

Mr Macfarlane said there would be more traffic studies and road safety audits.

In response to a question about community consultation by Cr Clair Mudaliar, Mr Macfarlane said the advisory group’s March 2022 report was available to the designers on the webpage, along with all other extant material going back years.

“The reason we have the Have Your Say survey is to give more information to the designers to inform those three design options,” he said.

Council CEO Anthony McMahon said there had initially been five options in their discussions with the State Government, but that was reduced to three.

“It was recognition there needed to be middle ground between an all-timber one-lane bridge and an all-concrete two-lane bridge,” he said.

Councillors will make their comparisons based on designs developed to 20 per cent, not finished with all the detail.

Cr O’Neil proposed two amendments to the motion:

1. Council notes that the designer will be working to the 2023 Design Guideline to improve the appearance of bridges in NSW published by Transport for NSW as Bridge Aesthetics, particularly the guideline on Modifications and additions to heritage bridges and bridges of cultural value from page 102.
2. That Council notes that the “hybrid” options that will be developed to 20 per cent by the designers under item A.3.2 of the agreement include substantive timber elements as in the current bridge structure and consideration of the overall appearance of the bridge in its environment, as part of the established character of that bridge, and as having heritage value.

The motion was passed unanimously.

A link to the petition can be found here.