Council to upgrade NDR in the coming months

The Northern Distributor Road was never built to pass on the NSW Government says Orange Mayor John Davis, amid reports there were disputes over the road's ownership.

Reports in local media followed calls, from Orange's new local member Phil Donato, for public dissatisfaction over funding for the road to be resolved.

Cr Davis said he understood the community's frustration with the NDR and how it has performed, but moved to assure residents Orange City Council would upgrade the road in the coming months.

He said there were plans being drawn up to upgrade the road and those plans were being reviewed by an industry specialist before any work would be undertaken.

"The community knows that it has not performed as well as it should and we are working to fix that," he said.

"It was never built to pass it on to the NSW Government. It was built to take heavy trucks and other traffic out of the CBD and to provide growth opportunities in North Orange. It’s been spectacularly successful on both those counts.

"That said it’s taking traffic numbers beyond the pre-construction estimates."

Despite being built to the standard of a high traffic local road the NDR has become in part a de facto Mitchell Highway.

The Mitchell Highway takes about 20,000 vehicles a day in parts. The bypass reaches 10,000 a day on some sections and 30 per cent of those vehicles are trucks.

"We sometimes get asked why wasn’t it built to a Mitchell Highway standard. On the surface it seems a fair question but it misses some critical points," Cr Davis said.

Some context shows the difference in funding allocations for a highway compared to what's available for a council owned local road.

The bypass from Escort Way to the Mitchell Highway at Chinaman’s Bend is 12.3 kilometres with four roundabouts, several waterway crossings and a rail bridge. The cost of the project was approximately $30 million, or about $2.4 million a kilometre.

The NSW Government is currently undertaking a realignment of the highway at Guanna Hill 21 kilometres north of Orange. The project costs for the 7.2 kilometre works are $56 million.

This equates to $7.8 million a kilometre.

Cr Davis said if that level of funding was available for the bypass the project costs would be close to $100 million.

"If we had put forward a $100 million project and asked for funding we would still be waiting for it to start," Cr Davis said.

"In recent discussions with Roads and Maritime Services there’s been recognition that the bypass is doing the work of more than a local road.

"We will get it as good as we can but in the future if we can work with the NSW Government to make sure the road works well for regional traffic we’d be happy to do that. The council is looking forward to working constructively with our new local member."

UPGRADES: Upgrades to the Northern Distributor Roads are being reviewed by an independent specialist.