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William St footbridge to be refurbished
Through active consultation with the Maitland Community, Australian Rail Track Corporation has committed to retaining the footbridge located at William Street East Maitland
From the outset, Australian Rail Track Corporation was determined to engage with the local community to establish the usage, importance and potential heritage value of the footbridge.
ARTC conducted letterbox drops, placed newspaper advertisements and contacted the local schools in order to ensure a wide cross section of feedback.
The response from the Maitland community was overwhelmingly in favour of keeping the bridge and therefore ARTC will take steps to retain this infrastructure.
After examining the best way to retain the bridge, ARTC will refurbish, strengthen and paint the bridge thus retaining its heritage value.
It is important for the community to note that it will be impractical to complete these repairs whilst the bridge is in its current location. ARTC will therefore remove the bridge in August 2010 and following its extensive refurbishment will reinstate in March 2011.
This six month period will be marked with milestones to ensure that bridge refurbishment will be completed on time. In addition the reinstatement of the bridge can only be completed during major track possessions in the Maitland area and will therefore need to coincide with a planned ‘shut down’.
ARTC has been pleased to work closely with the Maitland community on this issue..
Devonshire Street Footbridge to be renewed
The footbridge located at Devonshire Street Maitland which has been closed to the public since March 2009 will be removed in August 2010.
This work is required in order to facilitate the construction of a new structure in March 2011.
This work has been aligned as best as possible with the replacement of the adjacent structure over the New England Highway by the Roads and Traffic Authority.