To the Editor

With the resignation of the former General Manager of the Mid Coast Council,  as a concerned rate payer, one has to ask the following questions of Council.

Who is responsible for the letting of contracts for the roads and bridgeworks being carried out on the Bucketts Way?

Why was the contract issued to a building construction company, and not a civil engineering company, with a competent road and bridgework portfolio?

Who supervises this work, and who is responsible for its timely progression and quality finish?

The work in question at the moment is approximately half a mile, or .8 of a kilometre near the old Bo Bo Creek School Site, to the next hill over the Kelly Bridge, which the contractors replaced with two large pipes under the road.

As a concerned rate payer, I would like to know why this work is almost one year [12months} beyond the proposed finish date.

The work was almost completed before Christmas 2017, with the roadwork ready to seal before the Christmas break, but was not done till the new year, when the contractors returned to work. For the last 5 or 6 weeks, they have had to dig out the pipes under the road, because they never put the head walls in for the pipes on either side of the road.  Who is to be held accountable for this mess, and who pays for the contract over-runs?

Was the Special Rate Variation meant to pay for contract overruns? If so, will the roads and bridges in the rural areas in the MidCoast Council Area ever be brought up to a fit standard?

R.J. Harrison

Kimbriki