In the upcoming rate notices, people receive an official survey card with a reply paid envelope.

Council has not taken this extraordinary step lightly.

There are rightfully major concerns about the third bridge option for a number of reasons.

First of all, the River Street Bridge proposal will not take a single vehicle off Whylandra Street in West Dubbo.

The residents of West Dubbo can testify that the traffic situation every morning and afternoon has gotten out of hand.  The idea that you can continue to run the Newell Highway down Whylandra Street is absurd.

We must also look at the justification of the new bridge and the claims that it is high level and designed to be flood-proof. 

They fail to take seriously concerns that the Newell Highway still floods on Bourke Street from River Street further past Purvis Lane. 

Their solution is that during times of flood traffic will use Yarrandale Road, Erskine Street and back down Bourke Street. This would be funny if it were not so serious.

Added to that, the River Street Bridge proposal offers nothing to the transit industry that uses the Newell Highway. 

Again, the Newell, along with its hundreds of trucks, will continue to go through West Dubbo’s Whylandra Street making traffic a nightmare as well as generally making the area unsafe.

Trucks that are heading to Dubbo as a final destination should equally be frustrated with the lack of foresight. 

A Western Ring Road would directly take bulk transport from the West. 

A ring road would be a fantastic boost to truck drivers going from the western side of town from the airport using a direct link to the Purvis Lane/Troy Junction area, directly feeding both the saleyards and Fletchers.

I’m also annoyed about the equality of the decision.  How on earth can they justify building a ring road for Moree and Parkes, Newell Highway towns with a fraction of the population of Dubbo, but refuse to give Dubbo a ring road as well?

A lot of people have asked me what exactly a ring road is. In basic terms, from the south of Dubbo a road would be constructed around the zoo area going directly to the airport. 

From the airport it would then travel north/east to the Troy Junction area and cross the Macquarie with a high level bridge. 

This proposal has been the preferred option of your council for many years. 

It bypasses any flooding issues and dramatically cuts the amount of traffic from Whylandra Street in West Dubbo. 

Admittedly, it is more expensive than the River Street proposal, but when building infrastructure, we must always be looking to the future and consider future population growth. 

A great analogy for this is that they didn’t build the Sydney Harbour Bridge with just one lane nor should we build a bridge that simply won’t cater for Dubbo’s growing population in the coming years.

Council’s greatest fear is if the proposed $144 million will be spent on this River Street option, it will be decades before higher levels of government would consider a ring road. 

It’s for that reason that your council is embarking on an unprecedented survey in order to show the government the true will of Dubbo’s residents ratepayers.

While it is extremely disappointing that our current State Member will not intervene on this vitally important issue, I am hopeful that the candidates contesting the seat of Dubbo at the coming state election all commit to stopping this very bad bridge proposal.

For more information visit www.dubbo.nsw.gov.au. You can follow updates on www.facebook.com/DubboRegionalCouncil/.