The federal government has confirmed it will help pay to fix a bungled road upgrade which has forced Upper Hunter motorists to travel hours out of their way for the past two years.
Upper Hunter Shire Council announced on Wednesday that a $38 million federal funding allocation to help reopen the road from Merriwa to Willow Tree had survived Infrastructure Minister Catherine King's snap review of national infrastructure projects.
The rebuild will take two years.
Coulson's Creek Road, described as a "critical livestock freight route", was to be upgraded into a major transport route carrying large trucks and B-double vehicles.
Upper Hunter council undertook the construction itself in 2019 but botched the job.
Rain damage, which started as a series of dangerous tension cracks, turned into a major landslide not long after the project was finished, resulting in a five-tonne load limit from March 2020.
Less than a year later, in January 2021, the road was deemed unsafe to carry any traffic.
It has since all but washed away in large sections.
The Office of Local Government is still investigating the road project, which was the subject of a damning geotechnical report prepared for the council in June 2020.
What started as an $8 million project to upgrade the road will now cost more than $56 million.
The senior managers involved in the project are no longer at the council.
Mayor Wayne Bedggood resigned unexpectedly in June 2020 and general manager Steve McDonald followed him out the door a month later citing personal reasons.
The state and federal governments promised $48 million to repair the road last year, but the Commonwealth contribution was under a cloud during Ms King's 90-day review of infrastructure projects.
Upper Hunter state MP Dave Layzell welcomed confirmation the federal funds would start flowing.
"I have called for commonsense to prevail throughout the long campaign to lock in the finances so the work can finally take place because Upper Hunter Shire Council needed extra assistance to undertake this expensive repair," he said.
"The closure has impacted the lives of people who need to travel to Tamworth for medical treatment and the financial viability of local farmers who have had to shoulder increased costs for their businesses.
"I cannot stress how important it is to get this work done and completed to the required standard which delivers the heavy vehicle safety improvements that were originally intended by this project."
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