Lawrence against bridge build

Labor candidate for Dubbo Stephen Lawrence was responding to Saturday's announcement made by Dubbo MP Troy Grant and NSW Premier Mike Baird.

Mr Lawrence said the plan to build a new bridge to the north of the existing structure, creating four lanes over the Macquarie River, was a "panicked thought bubble".

"I can think of no other city in regional Australia that would willingly encourage extra trucks and highway traffic through their CBD long term in this way," Mr Lawrence said.

Challenged by Mr Lawrence to detail what consultations or research had taken place prior to the announcement, Mr Grant said the bridge was "a long-desired project", and he referred to a major study commissioned by Dubbo City Council in 2013.

In that study, transport engineering consultancy Pitt & Sherry's work showed a $30 million investment in duplicating the LH Ford Bridge would prevent future costs due to flooding of $62 million.

The investment was also projected to yield a total net improvement in economic activity of $162 million.

Council subsequently voted to use the Pitt & Sherry report to actively lobby the state and federal governments to fund the duplication of the LH Ford Bridge as a matter of priority.

Dubbo mayor Mathew Dickerson said a resolution at a Dubbo City Council meeting in 2012 had actually driven the request for the second bridge, which was council's preferred option and an announcement he welcomed.

"When the bridge was opened in 1969 the population of Dubbo was about 16,000 and it could handle the 1200 vehicles per lane per hour," he said.

"Since then we've more than doubled our population and our analysis today says it's at peak capacity in morning and afternoon peak times.

"If you lived in Sydney you might say it's not an issue, but when I became mayor people complained to me about the traffic queues on the bridge, and we knew by 2019 it would be at a critical stage.

"About a month before the last federal election I met with Warren Truss and Mark Coulton and presented them with a paper about the bridge to try to get money for it.

"We are often asked about our priorities, as a council, and the two priorities we had for the state government were the hospital at number one and the second was easing that traffic congestion between east and west Dubbo.

"Council could afford to build a low-level bridge at Tamworth Street but a high-level bridge was a better option in floods, but that (cost) was beyond the capability of council, and not really fair to fund given it was a highway.

"We always knew if the government didn't build it we'd have to build it, so the best outcome is a high-level bridge, a duplication of the LH Ford Bridge, which we have welcomed."

However Mr Lawrence said the "obvious answer for Dubbo's transport woes" was to build a ring road from the north of Dubbo across Bourke Hill and reconnecting with the Newell Highway past Kintyre Estate.

"Indeed, there are already preliminary plans for such a ring road to move big semi-trailers off the roads of Dubbo," he said. "But clearly Troy Grant wants a Taj Mahal. He wants something big, grand and new to show off to the people of Dubbo regardless of the practical implications, regardless of the safety aspects and regardless of the added traffic he will be deliberately shooting into Dubbo's CBD.

"The people of Dubbo need to understand that this duplicate bridge is no friend of theirs."

A bypass built at Orange had brought about economic benefits for that city, Mr Lawrence said, including new businesses opening.

"Troy is like a kid in a lolly shop, recklessly making promises from the money he intends on getting from privatising our essential assets, including Transgrid, the country high voltage electricity provider. He needs to realise that people in Dubbo will not be bought off.

Meanwhile, Roads Minister Duncan Gay defended the Coalition's bridge plan.

"There is now a clear choice - someone who wants to duplicate the bridge, and someone who doesn't," he said. "Troy Grant is prepared to, and Labor doesn't want to."