SHARON CLAYDON, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR NEWCASTLE
good to go. Yeah. Okay, good morning. My name is Sharon Claydon, Federal Member for Newcastle, and I'm joined this morning by councillor Declan Clausen, our Acting Deputy Lord Mayor, who's been a terrific partner in this project that we're announcing today, the Commonwealth government is giving $5 million towards its $21 million project to both plan and replace this historic, 120 year old plus hidden Street Bridge that runs across cottage Creek. It's important because it's obviously a major road for traffic, Hunter Street, and this is going to assist with ensuring that we've got that flow through traffic. But also, especially days like this remind us of the need the important place at Cottage Creek plays in flood mitigation. We are on a flood plain here, and this bridge is just running past its use by date now, served us well for 120 years, but it needs replacement, and we've added a safer roads and local infrastructure project run by a program run by the Albanese Labor Government. $5 million coming across there to make sure that this road is safe, that it's doing what it needs to do with getting through traffic flowing, and that it sets us up for the future in terms of being able to manage flood waters and increase weather events. So I'm going to ask councillor Clausen to just step us through some of the details and why this is important project for the City of Newcastle.

DECLAN CLAUSEN, CITY OF NEWCASTLE ALTERNATE DEPUTY LORD MAYOR
Thank you, Sharon, good morning. It is really wonderful that we have the support of the federal Albanese government to deliver this $21 million upgrade here on Hunter Street, replacing the historic bridge over cottage Creek. This is a really important project for the city, 21 million investment in total because it is such an important roadway. It's used every day by pedestrians, by busses, by freight and, of course, by many, many motorists. The importance of this work, as Sharon said, is to alleviate some of the upstream flooding risk, to address a structure that currently does have some structural integrity issues that have been identified. It's been load limited for a number of years because there are concerns about the structure. It does need to be replaced, and this, this federal funding, $5 million will go a long way towards supporting that work. Council has already started this project with land acquisitions. We've purchased some of the buildings that sit atop the bridge so that they could be removed to make way for the construction works that need to undertake in order to address this project. But it is a project that is quite significant in terms of its value. The $5 million investment from Sharon Claydon and the Albanese Labor Government is absolutely critical for the city of Newcastle be able to get this project to come together and deliver this great outcome for Novocastrians. So really pleased about the strong partnership that exists between the federal government and the local government here in Newcastle to be able to deliver great outcomes for our community. Okay, any questions,

JOURNALIST
You mentioned that it's a fairly arterial road. Obviously, when construction goes ahead, how are you going to manage traffic that needs to use Hunter Street? It's a fairly sort of critical juncture there.

DECLAN CLAUSEN, CITY OF NEWCASTLE ALTERNATE DEPUTY LORD MAYOR
It's a great question, Simon, I know that a lot of work has been undertaken with the Council staff about exactly how to manage it. There will be times when sections of Hunter Street will need to be closed, but we've they've worked through a construction program to limit those closures and diversions as much as possible, because it is such an important roadway for the city. I can come back to you with some further detail about the exact the exact timing and the way that will work, but I know that it has been a really significant piece of the consideration about how this project will happen.

JOURNALIST
You mentioned that the funding is for design and the construction. Do we have a sort of rough, fine line? I'm guessing, if I'm using Hunter street every day, I'm wondering, like, when shovels are going in the ground? Yep, is this happening in 12 months? Three months, next week?

DECLAN CLAUSEN, CITY OF NEWCASTLE ALTERNATE DEPUTY LORD MAYOR
Yeah, of course, yeah, of course. Sorry, that's not helpful, yeah. So in terms of the time frame, because this project has commenced with some of the land acquisition works already, the design works are underway. There are a number of competing priorities here, including, because Hunter Street is a state a state government road. There are significant utility assets that run across Hunter street here, water, sewer, gas, power, etc, that need to be relocated. That is all part of the scope of this project. So I don't have the specific time frame as to when the physical construction will happen, but know that those construction efforts are significant. We will work to minimize the disruption for the community as much as possible, and there are funds in next year's Council's budget in order to ensure that this project moves to the next stage. So the work is is imminent. It's just very complicated, given the number of competing, competing components, which buildings have you acquired or are working to acquire? Excellent question. There was previously a building across this end of Hunter street. So that has already been acquired and removed. The building immediately next door. We're currently going through an acquisition process with the landowner. It currently sits atop the bridge structure, so it's not possible in order to have it continue to coexist. It's one of the issues of working in a historic city like Newcastle. We've got a bridge structure that's 120 years old. A lot of decisions have been made in that time, and we now need to carefully pick through them and make sure that we can upgrade the underlying structure and keep everybody safe.

JOURNALIST
People watching this, who own a business here or work along here? Should they be nervous that their building might need to be quiet, and how is business going to be affected along here?

DECLAN CLAUSEN, CITY OF NEWCASTLE ALTERNATE DEPUTY LORD MAYOR
Just to be clear, the number of buildings that are impacted are very small, and we've been working with those landowners for some time. So it is, will be absolutely no surprise to anybody that is that is impacted. We've been going through an acquisition process, negotiating with them in terms of the price and the way that that that acquisition works, that's just following the standard statutory compulsory acquisition process. So there won't be anybody that's shocked by this news. This has been something that we have been working with those impacted parties for some time, and they're happy to go along with it. I think they understand just how important this bridge is to the city. It's not possible for us to undertake those works without acquiring the properties that sit atop the bridge, so we haven't needed to undertake that acquisition, just so that we can safely do this work and see a bridge upgraded that hopefully will last at least another 120 years, and keep keep things moving on Hunter street.

JOURNALIST
I could be not knowing much about this area, but to me, there's nothing glaring that looks like it needs to be fixed. Can you explain what may be the invisible so bits are that are unsafe, potentially, it just goes to the age of age of the structure and its construction.

DECLAN CLAUSEN, CITY OF NEWCASTLE ALTERNATE DEPUTY LORD MAYOR
Things that were built 120 years ago typically start to come towards the end of their life. We engage a team of fairly qualified engineers that keep an eye on structures like this across the city. This particular structure has come to the end of its life. We've put in place the load limiting that's been in place for a couple of years now, just in order to make sure the street remains remain safe. Clearly, the worst possible outcome would be some form of catastrophic failure that doesn't come in a managed way, where we've been able to plan and upgrade by being able to plan and properly fund it, we're making sure that we keep this roadway way open.

JOURNALIST
How urgent, I guess, is this project like? Is there a risk of the road crumbling and things like that?

DECLAN CLAUSEN, CITY OF NEWCASTLE ALTERNATE DEPUTY LORD MAYOR
It has been safely managed with a load limiting, but that is a temporary solution. It needs to be replaced, which is what this project will enable us to do. Do you perceive, you know, similar projects like this coming more to Newcastle in the next year, 20 or so years, I know we had, and it's partly with the neighbouring Council. The issue at taro a year or two ago, where you know that rail bridge nearly failed, is that something that Newcastle is going to have to deal with more and more. Yeah, this project certainly isn't unique to this part of Newcastle, and it's been great partnership, to be fair, with the with the Commonwealth Government, especially, but also the state government for other structures in our in our region, I think of Wallsend and the flooding issues there. Council is going through a process now of upgrading all of our bridges that run through the walls end, CBD, for very similar reasons. They were constructed in a manner that has exacerbated flooding. We've been able to work through a process of seeing those replaced, reducing the flooding risk, but also upgrading the capacity. That's exactly what we're doing here and and it's a significant project for the city.

JOURNALIST
When the new bridge is built, will it be a different design? Will it look completely different? Will it be, I guess, more flood proof, etc.

DECLAN CLAUSEN, CITY OF NEWCASTLE ALTERNATE DEPUTY LORD MAYOR
It will be more flood proof. But lots of the changes are things that are changing below ground. So we're relocating the infrastructure assets, for example, so that they will be completely separate from the bridge and below the channel, and we'll be removing some of the pinch points that exist in the channel. You can see, when you look at the bridge structure, there's it's essentially a series of culverts. We'll be removing those pinch points, which will reduce the flooding risk, but from once it's done, from the end users perspective, you're not going to notice a difference on Hunter Street. This is we will be replacing it with something that's very, very similar from from the perspective of road users, this is another project, of course, for Hunter Street. There's a lot happening with Hunter Street, more up the East End, opening up, I guess.

JOURNALIST
How long do you think it'll take to get Hunter street right, where we're not doing any more stuff to it, where it will just be ready to go?

DECLAN CLAUSEN, CITY OF NEWCASTLE ALTERNATE DEPUTY LORD MAYOR
That is a great question, because I have further plans around continuing to invest in Hunter Street. We've been we have the cycleway, for example, that runs through the Midtown section of Hunter street. There is further upgrade works that are needed for it to head even further further west. That's something that council has been working on for a number of years, and we will continue to fund and deliver upgrades. I'm really pleased by the progress that has been made on the eastern side of Hunter street around the mall. We saw the latest section of it opened just last week. There's another great partnership between the Federal Government and the city of Newcastle that's delivering a further $16 million worth of investment into that part of of the city center. Of course, the way that we want to do this is in a very measured, pragmatic and considered way, so that we're minimizing the disruption. We're enabling businesses to continue to continue to trade, and people to come and visit this part of the city. And so that's that's certainly the approach that we're taking with this, this project as well.

JOURNALIST
Declan, will the buildings be replaced, or will be converted to a public plaza or area that that is a question that exceeds my knowledge.

DECLAN CLAUSEN, CITY OF NEWCASTLE ALTERNATE DEPUTY LORD MAYOR
Rod, certainly in terms of the building that we have already removed. It is not going to be replaced this public access way that has been formed the connection between King Street and Hunter street that's going to remain in place. I need to come back to you about what might happen with the buildings that need to be removed just at the very end of Hunter street. But I'm not envisaging major changes.

JOURNALIST
Would you just remind us about I think it was Pasha Baulker and other similar storms that have seen an impact on this particular area.

DECLAN CLAUSEN, CITY OF NEWCASTLE ALTERNATE DEPUTY LORD MAYOR
Yeah, so cottage Creek is one of the most significant waterways in our city. It alongside Throsby Creek drains a significant portion of Newcastle when blockages occur, particularly downstream here, and especially when we have have significant tidal events, the consequences occur much further upstream, and we see flooding happen in the catchments, cottage Creek strains, Hamilton and Hamilton south, for example, areas that were severely impacted when we have those very significant storm events removing constraints down here as a result of doing this project, assist in reducing flooding further upstream. So it is a positive thing that comes for the city. It's worth acknowledging, though, that Newcastle does sit on a flood plain. We are going to continue to need to invest in new infrastructure like this right across Newcastle, particularly with the consequences of climate change that are seeing more significant storm events impacting our city.

SHARON CLAYDON, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR NEWCASTLE
And that's the intent of this particular program that's being funded from because, we know, increasingly local governments across Australia, they're just, there's not only increased costs of construction and we're going to see impacts now with fuel prices increasing as well, but the ongoing need for councillors to address climate emergencies is just, you know, quite significant now. So this program is really there to assist our partnerships with local government now to bear some of that cost. Really otherwise, projects like this just probably don't get done by local government anymore, and so nobody wants to be in that situation. So, you know, there's really strong partnerships now between local government and the Commonwealth, and we have a prime minister who's always been very strong on that aspect, actually. So we've got partnerships all across the city with the city of Newcastle now, and I'll keep announcing them as they come through.

JOURNALIST
Is this going to fix the flooding in front of the King Street hotel?

DECLAN CLAUSEN, CITY OF NEWCASTLE ALTERNATE DEPUTY LORD MAYOR
I don't know. I will need to come back to you. I suspect it will help. And again, anything that reduces pinch points downstream assists in reducing flooding that occur further upstream. I know we have done some work as a result of the inundation and drainage that happens around King Street. Transport for New South Wales have as well. Some of that was as a result of the the underground drainage system, so the way that the pits and the pipes work from Council. But I'm not sure the the exact implications of this project on it, but I could just suggest that it will assist.

JOURNALIST
And I know we don't have a timeline yet, but roughly how major of a project is this when it does eventually start? Is it about a year?

DECLAN CLAUSEN, CITY OF NEWCASTLE ALTERNATE DEPUTY LORD MAYOR
This is a major project. So $21 million just in the context of Council's infrastructure program, is about 15% of our total infrastructure investment right across the city. It is a sizeable project, which is why a partnership between commonwealth and local government is so important, we are not holding back on the delivery of this project. So there is funding. The acquisition works and planning have already commenced that will continue into the next financial year. It is all systems go, and it's certainly supported with the Commonwealth investment that we've now received.