At last month’s Snowy Monaro Regional Council meeting regarding item 9.1.2, (the total sealing of Bobeyan Road project), some councillors expressed concerns about publicly funded costs ($19 million to date), partial project scope delivery, outstanding land compulsory acquisition issues and overall progress achieved since 2020.

The original scope defined in annual operational plans (OP) was in summary ‘to boost tourism and the local economy with a major state funded road that will see the Bobeyan Road sealed from Adaminaby to the ACT border’.

This funding was a state taxpayer grant of $20m over a four year delivery schedule starting 2020.

There is now only a beautiful road between Ashvale Road and Shannons Flat sandwiched between significant intermittent hazardous lengths of original dirt road.

The original approved costed scope for this project is obviously not complete. Where are the records of the contractor’s project progress and council’s formal approvals to reduce the scope of the funded contract works and why?

What are the lessons learned? There must be some.

Malcolm Rose

Cooma