Leaders in northern New South Wales are concerned they will not be able to “build back better” with flood relief money and will instead be forced to rebuild the same flood-prone roads and bridges, leaving communities at risk.
While Transport for NSW works to restore the most critical of the hundreds of roads that have been damaged or swept away in the disaster, councils are also turning their thoughts to the future.
Kyogle mayor Kylie Thomas wants to see a safer and more resilient area rebuilt on the other side of the floods, or she fears the same devastation will happen again next time.
“My greatest concern is that we just get all this money to fix our roads – but just fix them, not build them better,” she said.
“We really do need to start moving what bridges where we can, see what roads we can build back higher, wider, stronger – instead of just replacing same with [the] same.”
Kyogle council is still assessing the damage across its patch, where at least 50 homes were gutted and the CBD was inundated, and Thomas predicted a large bill once every road and pothole has been looked at.
She wants the state government to commit to longer-term funding for the rebuild so it is not rushed and construction contracts could be secured.
“Give us the whole big picture and let us to have some space [so] that we’re not just going to be scrambling from one grant to the next,” she said.
So far, about $1.5bn in support for flood-affected areas has been promised by the state and federal governments to aid in the recovery, including $285m for temporary housing.
Byron mayor Michael Lyon agreed with Thomas, having raised the issue with NSW regional infrastructure minister Sam Farraway over the past two weeks.
“If you’ve got something which you needed to improve anyway, and then it’s been washed away, it makes sense to improve it,” Lyon said.
He hoped the government would make funds available to councils for improvements while they were rebuilding.
“Even if there was some kind of loan mechanism to do that through the government, that would be something we would definitely take up,” he said.
Ballina deputy mayor Eoin Johnston said councils would need more funding to raise critical roads in low-lying areas – but it would be tough to future-proof all areas. Johnston noted suggestions in the past to raise homes in Ballina, which was not possible for many.
“The infrastructure is going to cost money for all the shires – it was already behind before these floods came,” he said.
“[We need to] repair what is damaged. Elevate some roads. You can’t have these towns cut off like that. We need more money.”
The opposition energy services spokesperson, Jihad Dib, said “skimping on costs” now would do future generations a disservice.
“Rebuilding damaged infrastructure must take into account ways to mitigate the sort of damage and danger we have seen in these latest floods.
“We have seen that current infrastructure is not fit for purpose and to rebuild in exactly the same way is shortsighted and not future-proofed.
“We owe it to local communities to rebuild structures in a better way, like-for-like replacement will not necessarily be the best option in many cases.”
Federal MP for Richmond, Justine Elliot, described the situation in the northern rivers as a “humanitarian crisis”, calling for more funding for councils in the recovery.
“I’ve been strongly calling on the state and federal governments to deliver more funding for businesses, individuals and councils,” she said.
When asked if the government would reconsider future developments in flood-prone areas, the premier, Dominic Perrottet, confirmed the issue was being looked at.
Speaking from a recovery centre in South Windsor, he said there would always be risks to property and people in catastrophic events but it could not be business-as-usual from here on.
“You can’t just keep doing the same thing the same old way ending up in the same situation and do nothing about it,” he said.
“We need to have some fair-dinkum discussions and some work around how can we improve things going forward.
“We’ve to do everything we can to prevent these events from being as catastrophic as they can be, and there is no better time to be having those discussions and looking at it than now.”
A spokesperson for Transport for NSW said the first priority would be restoring the most critical of the hundreds of roads that were damaged, some of which were still unusable.
“Assessments of what needs to be done in the long term will be carried out by specialists,” the spokesperson said.
“The views of all stakeholders, including local councils, on what needs to be done will be taken into account.”