133-year-old Cuttagee Bridge, south of Bermagui. Photo: David Rogers Photography.
The campaign to restore Cuttagee Bridge has entered a new phase with a new committee, the Restoration of Cuttagee Bridge Group (RCBG), being formed.
During the 2023 state election campaign, Labor committed $15 million towards repairing and restoring the 133-year-old bridge in line with its heritage values.
In November 2025 Bega Valley Shire Councillors voted to replace the bridge with a 12-metre-wide two-lane concrete structure, ignoring repeated calls from the community for a single-lane “hybrid” structure with substantive timber elements.
The convenor of the new group is Barragga Bay resident Phil Coates. He said the concrete bridge would destroy the existing aesthetic of the surrounding stunning natural environment, rich heritage, tourism and road safety qualities the single-lane bridge provided.
RCBG wants the NSW Government to take over the project from council.
“We are calling on local Member for Bega Dr Michael Holland and NSW Minister for Regional Transport and Roads Jenny Aitchison to stop funding any further development on council’s preferred oversized concrete bridge option and instead develop a genuine heritage alternative,” Mr Coates said. “Transport for NSW (TfNSW) did an outstanding job of restoring Wallaga Lake Bridge that is also situated on Tourist Drive 9.”
RCBG has nine members with professional backgrounds spanning heritage and restoration engineering, environment, road safety, and communications. New members are welcome.
NSW Minister for Regional Transport and Roads Jenny Aitchison and Member for Bega Dr Michael Holland with supporters of Cuttagee Bridge. Photo: Marion Williams.
Mr Coates said the community was dismayed. Instead of the promised heritage outcome, council proposes to demolish the bridge and replace it with a modern, two-lane bridge with an estimated project cost of $29.1 million. That does not include the cost of purchasing biodiversity credits.
“It has gone from a cost of about $11.2 million forecast in 2021/22 to $29.1 million,” he said. “How can council spend more than twice the allotted amount? It will come back to bite ratepayers.”
TfNSW’s total financial outlay for Wallaga Lake Bridge’s refurbishment, completed in July 2025, was around $13.3 million.
Mr Coates said council never seriously considered repairing and upgrading Cuttagee Bridge in line with its heritage values.
“The point about losing heritage has been downtrodden by talk of safety, but you can have both,” he said. The single-lane hybrid option that council proposed allowed emergency vehicle access while residents could evacuate in the opposite direction.
“The debate around timber versus steel and concrete has not been discussed properly,” Mr Coates said.
“The sheer size of it is over-scale. It is engineering overkill,” he said. “How wide does the bridge need to be? They are all points of discussion for NSW Government and TfNSW. I think we can find some common ground.”
Mr Coates said the tourism value had been underplayed when tourism generated around $500 million annually for the shire’s economy.
“There is no reason Cuttagee Bridge can’t be restored like Wallaga Lake Bridge and the whole tourist road could become an engineering tourist trail,” he said.
Ken Murtagh, a local structural and heritage engineer, has suggested that Wallaga Lake Bridge and a sensitively restored Cuttagee Bridge, along with the other single-lane timber bridges south of Cuttagee have merit as an engineering tourist trail.
Engineer Ken Murtagh with his plans to fix the bridge instead of replacing it. Photo: Marion Williams.
Mr Coates is also concerned about the road safety implications of replacing a single-lane timber-decked bridge with a two-lane concrete one.
He said it would dramatically increase the potential risk of traffic incidents for vehicles with pedestrians and wildlife.
“It has created some unanswered management issues in the immediate bridge precinct to which they currently have no solutions and no money to fix,” Mr Coates said. “For example, it is anticipated that the speed limit over the new bridge could be increased to 80 km/h, with no provision for car parking for recreational users of Cuttagee Lake estuary and tidal area, north and south of the new bridge.”
Mr Coates sees potential problems with the temporary bridge planned on the beach side of the bridge in a sensitive dune area.
“They have only allowed for a 25-metre-long temporary bridge, but it will likely need to be 75 metres,” he said. “If that temporary bridge doesn’t work that road could be closed for 12 months which would devastate businesses in Bermagui and Tathra.
“We will be ramping up our efforts in our local community, amplifying the voices of independent experts and building pressure on key ministers to restore Cuttagee Bridge in line with the scope of previous commitments, while still delivering a bridge that is resilient, requires low maintenance, caters for emergency vehicles, is future-proofed for decades to come, and is economically sensible.”
