Planning to reduce the duration of Newell Highway flood closures is almost ready to move forward again after the project budget was revised down $109 million.
Transport for NSW in December 2023 confirmed a total funding commitment of $141 million - $50 million in Federal and $91 million in State funding – following independent reviews of Australian and NSW infrastructure programs, a Transport spokesperson said in response to inquiries from The Forbes Advocate.
Since 2024 the team has been investigating options that will shorten the closures, while maximising value for money.
“In early 2025, Transport identified a revised option that would fit within the available funding,” the spokesperson said.
“This option focuses on constructing culverts at existing causeways in the Marsden section of the Newell Highway to reduce the number of days the road is inundated during and after a flood event.”
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Transport is now progressing concept design and environmental assessment for the revised option and expects to display the Review of Environmental Factors (REF) in 2026 for community and stakeholder feedback.
Cr Chris Roylance, chair of the Newell Highway Taskforce, is looking forward to seeing progress on what he describes as vital work on this national highway.
Cr Roylance has been among those calling for action since the lengthy closure of the highway during and after the 1990 floods, those calls intensified after it was closed for six weeks in the 2016 floods.
In the 2022 flood events it was closed for seven weeks and while getting the highway open in time for school holiday and Christmas travel was a priority, speed limits did remain in place while work on the damaged sections of road continued for months to follow.
Cr Roylance is eager to see detailed plans and - importantly - action.
"The culverts were the original vision now we’d like to see that put into place: we just need a timeline now as to when we can do that," he said.
"It will be good for Forbes and West Wyalong to get that finalised – it cuts off that road completely and being a national highway, that should never happen."
Transport has identified the causeways that flood first and stayed closed the longest in that 2022 event and – based on those findings – had begun preparing a concept design for some 11km of flood mitigation treatments at Marsden.
From early 2024, Transport has been working on a revised scope of works to meet the funding commitment confirmed for the project following the independent reviews of the Australian and NSW Government infrastructure programs in 2023.
Counting the cost
The six-week closure of the Newell Highway in 2016 had an estimated total direct cost of $112 million (contingent valuation method), the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research calculated in a report published in August 2017.
The report, prepared for the Newell Highway Taskforce, government, primary producers and transport organisations, flagged:
$23.5 million for increased road freight transport costs;
$16 million from the loss of nearby service exports from the LGAs in the broader Bland Creek catchment;
$20 million loss of agriculture production, compared to the case of an upgraded highway with best practice drainage facilities;
$46 million loss of production from supply chain disruption elsewhere in Australia; and
$6.7 million from increased road maintenance expenditure.
While they did calculate loss in tourism expenditure from the national perspective, the loss to affected areas was estimated at $14 million.
The flow-on impact for lost increases and household consumption on total gross regional product was modelled at a minimum $138 million, up to $153 million, the impact on the most-affected LGAs was “of the order of a conservative $36 million”.
All dollar values are contingent valuation method based on the 2014 / 2025 financial year.
