Resident Kaitlyn Favero says her family have been driven around the bend by the nearby construction of the Hanwood roundabout at the intersection of Kidman Way and Thorne Road.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Construction first started in April and Griffith City Council expects it to be complete by January.
Mrs Favero a mother of two says the most irritating aspect of the construction been the installation of a traffic control in front of the family’s house, as sections of Kidman Way on either side of the roundabout have been made single lane.
“Probably the worst thing would be cars pulling up at all hours playing loud music, and waking us up, the road closed on the 18th of June so I pretty much haven't slept since then,” Mrs Favero said.
Mrs Favero said the motorists queuing at the traffic lights often litter and block driveways, making it difficult for her family to enter and leave their property.
The complaints of Mrs Favero come as the council has received a high commendation for its’ newly completed Bagtown roundabout from the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australiasia engineering excellence awards for 2018.
At the awards council was commended in the category for design and construction of a Local Government/Public Works project greater than $500,000.
As for the Hanwood roundabout council began roadworks for the $1.6 million project in April having initially scheduled its’ completion for the end of August this year, before a minor delay until October was announced.
Related links
Council’s infrastructure and operations director Phil King said “council has been unable to obtain approval from Essential Energy to move eight power poles.”
“This is a complicated task as both high voltage and low voltage networks will be impacted, additionally Essential Energy has obligations to provide power to their customers and follow the energy regulator requirements for outages,” Mr King said.
“Council commenced the process to move the poles in May 2017.
“It is likely that the poles will be relocated in January 2019,” Mr King said.
Council has been unable get approval for a fixed outage date from Essential Energy so that contractors can relocate the power poles.
A design information pack was requested from Essential Energy in 2017 for contractors to draw up plans for the relocation.
In September 2017, Mr King said there were “unforeseen circumstances” which complicated the plans to relocate the poles with the volume and complexity of issues leading to a drawn out planning process.
On October 16 this year, council’s electrical contractor submitted their finalised plans which were certified by Essential Energy on October 29.
“The actual work on that outage date will take six hours, this is the hard part for the public to understand that there is a long procedure to obtain such approval,” Mr King said.
“(The roundabout’s) primer seal (has been) placed, and two layers of asphalt have also been placed, council anticipates that the bulk of the works will be completed by the end of December, with full construction to be complete at the end of January.”
Mr King believes the traffic control will be removed from Kidman Way by the end of December.
DO YOU WANT MORE GRIFFITH NEWS?
Receive our free newsletter delivered to your inbox every Monday morning. Sign up here.