Harry Graham Drive to reopen

One of the city’s key east-west links will reopen next week after extensive works to stabilise the road and repair it after Wollongong’s wild weather earlier this year.

Harry Graham Drive, a valued access road that provides a link between Mount Kembla and Mount Keira Road and Clive Bissell Drive, was closed in March after parts of the road cracked and fell away during the heavy rain.

With work already planned for the road, Council was able to fast-track the additional road repairs and the install rock fall fencing.

“Harry Graham Drive has long been a challenging road for Council as it’s particularly susceptible to movement, particularly following heavy rains, due to its underlying geology,’’ Wollongong City Lord Mayor Councillor Gordon Bradbery AM said.

“In this case, we had already planned to undertake some works on this road over the winter months so that the road would be operational for the 2022/2023 bushfire season and, following the 700mm-plus volume of rain in the first three months of the year, we needed to add emergency works to the schedule.

“The escarpment is continually eroding and presenting geotechnical challenges especially after the massive rainfall events like those in the first half of this year. The latest work on Harry Graham Drive will cost more than $2.4M to stabilise and resurface.’’

The original works brief was to carry out embankment stabilisation using shotcrete and rock bolts and install a rock-catch fence.

After all the heavy rain events earlier in the year further repairs were required including stabilising sections of the road using large metal sheets piles that were driven deep into the ground and capped with a concrete capping beam as well as extensive vegetation clean up, reshaping numerous landslides and repairing drainage structures. These works were completed under emergency works provisions.

“We know Harry Graham Drive is important to our community and its significance was very apparent earlier this year as the weather impacted all the roads up the escarpment,’’ Wollongong City Council General Manager Greg Doyle said.

“We saw a range of weather-related road issues along both Council and state-managed roads including on Lawrence Hargrave Drive, Bulli Pass, and Mount Ousley and Mount Keira roads.

“This is a vulnerability for our city and puts us at risk of being cut off. It’s essential we maintain this road so that it provides an important access way for our community who use this road to travel up or down the escarpment.

“I’m pleased we’ve been able to finish this phase of work ahead of the bushfire season.’’

Council has also sought financial support through the Federal Government’s disaster recovery program to cover the costs of the works.

“We do hear comment from our community that this project was all about the big bike race coming to the city in September,’’ Cr Bradbery said.

“While there’s no doubt they are certainly planning to use the road for the race – and it will look spectacular seeing the riders pass through this area – this wasn’t a project for the race. This was about safe and easy access for our community.’’

The road will reopen early next week once the last stages of works, including wrapping up drainage clearing, installation of signage and painting jersey barriers, have been completed.