After more than a decade closed to traffic, the Vaughan-Tarilta bridge (or low-level crossing as the experts call it) has been replaced.
The original timber bridge crossing the Loddon River was built in 1868. The closure of this vital crossing has caused long detours and limited access for locals.
The replacement concrete crossing came with a million dollar price tag – $892,000 through the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program and $146,000 from Mount Alexander Shire Council.
Former councillor Christine Henderson said she had been on council for 16 years and the crossing was put on the table in her second year.
“There’s only so much money every year to be allocated to bridges, and all 256 of the bridges [in the shire] probably need replacing, but the Vaughan-Tarilta bridge was slated for development. It was going to be demolished and a new bridge put in. Great,” she said.
“We passed it [the motion] and then a deputation from Vaughan came to a council meeting saying, ‘Don’t you dare take away our bridge! Don’t you dare! It’s a heritage bridge, it’s beautiful, we’re not losing the bridge’. And we said, ‘Okay. It’s going to cost us close to a million dollars, so alright we’ll back off and replace another bridge, which really needs doing’, so the money got diverted.
“That was fine, until one day a car was driving over the bridge and put its wheel through the deck. Oh, dear! It must be time to close the bridge. That was when the fun started,” Ms Henderson said.
Continuing the animated story of the bridge, Ms Henderson spoke about the need for an access road, one that was never built and with no land allocated to the council for the purpose, which required an act of parliament. Heritage groups then stepped in and said the bridge could not be developed, leaving the council unsure how to proceed.
“These are just some of the fun times we’ve had in trying to get a level-crossing across this beautiful river, the Loddon River – the second longest in Victoria,” she said.
“Then there was a crossing proposed, and that was going great for a while and then in came an agency who said, ‘No, you can’t do that because the fish won’t like it. The fish won’t go under the dark section and that’s going to be a problem, so you can’t do that’. Oh dear!
“And so it went on and on and on. But I got my teeth into this, this is going to happen. There is an ancient crossing that I bet has been a place to cross the river for thousands and thousands of years,” Ms Henderson said.
During her fourth term as a councillor, the crossing was one of Ms Henderson’s big drivers, despite the fact it was not part of her ‘patch’.
Learning that Federal MP Lisa Chesters had provided money through a federal program that would be allocated to the crossing, she was overjoyed that the project she had fought so long for, had finally been achieved.
“I am so happy it has been built!”
