Tenders for the proposed Bridport Western Access Road have been called, with the process to start in “a matter of weeks”.
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The Dorset council has called for contractors to design and construct a bridge over the Brid River and for the Bridport Road intersection.
Dorset mayor Greg Howard said the project was “a lot of work”.
“We’ve tendered out the George Town Road end of it. It’s a complex slip lane and intersection and then a short bit of road to the bridge and to build the bridge itself,” he said.
Cr Howard said he imagined the planned bridge would be concrete based.
He said the tendered parts of the plan were out of the council’s expertise, but the rest of the road, from the Northern side of the bridge through to Sandy Points Road would be built by the council’s team.
Cr Howard said the council was waiting for approval from Crown Land Services, which would be the final hurdle to overcome before construction started.
“We’re waiting for the approval to come through on the Northern side of the bridge because it’s Crown Land and we’re waiting on the approval to acquire that. All the studies have been done on that and it’s all good,” he said.
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The council didn’t have to buy the land off Crown Services.
“(It’s an) agreement where Crown is able to transfer land to a council for specific purpose, in this case for the construction of a road, we pay all the survey costs, but you don’t actually have to pay for the land.” he said.
However, the council had to purchase some land to construct the bridge.
“We have an agreement in place with the land owner to acquire the property and they’re quite happy with the proposal we’ve put forward. Obviously we made them an offer and they’re quite happy with that,” he said.
The whole project is worth about $4 million and is expected to take about 18 months.
“We have a Federal grant for $1.94 million and a $1 million commitment from the state government and the council will cover the rest,” Cr Howard said.
A pre-tender site inspection and briefing is scheduled August 16.