The raised deck height of the new Windsor Bridge has been welcomed by the Hawkesbury SES, who say it will give residents more time to prepare their travel in the event of a flood.
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Hawkesbury SES Controller Kevin Jones said the raised height of the bridge, roughly one meter, would give them more lead time to inform the community during a flood event.
“The raised deck height of the new bridge will certainly allow us more time to receive information from the Bureau and inform residents during a flood event,” Mr Jones said.
“This will give residents living and working on opposites sides of the bridge more time to return home.”
Mr Jones said however that the new bridge would not act as a valid evacuation route in the event of a major flood.
He said the evacuation route for residents west of the river was to in fact move further west.
“The new bridge won’t act as an evacuation route as such as the issue we have during a flood on the Windsor side of the bridge is the islands that form in Windsor, South Windsor and Bligh Park areas,” he said.
“During a flood event such as this the flood evacuation route for these residents would be the Jim Anderson Bridge or Richmond Road.
“For residents living west of the river in places such as Wilberforce and Ebenezer they would travel further west up the hill.”
The state government gave a firm timeline for the construction of the new Windsor bridge on Tuesday, and announced it will now be three lanes wide from when it opened.
Plans to date had been for one lane each way, though the possibility of a further lane to be added at a later date had been discussed in the past.
Hawkesbury MP Dominic Perrottet said there would now be two lanes permanently southbound (from Freemans Reach to Windsor) and one lane northbound, with the size of the bridge deck to remain the same.