Orange City Council will ask the state and federal governments about delaying the project until after the next section of the Southern Feeder Road is complete

Councillors Glenn Taylor and Jeff Whitton voiced fears about the amount traffic using Anson Street during the year of construction.

The work is due to start in May and the bridge would need to be closed in both directions for certain periods, which cannot be worked out until tenders are called.

“Anson Street, it’s gridlock at certain times of the day when James Sheehan finishes – it takes 10 minutes from the bridge on Anson Street to Gardiner Road so if you put in the extra traffic from the hospital, you’ve got a recipe for disaster,” Cr Taylor said.

“Whatever we do, we will get blamed for it, we need to let people know we’re doing the utmost to have it deferred.”

Cr Whitton said the businesses along Peisley Street and Forest Road needed to be considered.

“We have to look at what they’ve done in George Street [Sydney, with the light rail project], they’ve destroyed the businesses, we’ve got to think about today,” he said. 

Technical services director Chris Devitt said there was a finite window the funding for the $2.5 million project would be available.

He noted in his report the council intended to keep southbound traffic open as much as possible, but it would be cheaper to allow the contractor more access.

“There is scope maintain two-way traffic for quite a bit of the works but there would be probably times when for swinging girders and the like we might need to close the road for a day here and there,” he said.

Cr Taylor said he had no intention of putting the project in jeopardy.

“Because if it’s not needed immediately, it will be in years to come,” he said.

“But the fact is, I don’t know whether the other levels of government will understand the importance of the logistics of this city.”

Councillors resolved earlier in the night to invite deputy premier John Barilaro for a meeting and mayor John Davis said it was an opportunity to get the Southern Feeder Road to at least Woodward Street.

“If we had the southern distributor partway in some form to get the traffic away, it would certainly help,” he said.