Government sinks Ulmarra ferry service

By Tim Howard

The pleas of a rural community and its representatives to keep the Ulmarra Ferry service have counted for nought, with the service scheduled to close permanently on June 10.

Transport for NSW announced last week the ferry, which has operated for 74 years carrying vehicular traffc across the Clarence River between Ulmarra and Southgate, will be decommissioned.

TfNSW director North Region Anna Zycki said the ferry had reached an age and condition where it was no longer ft to operate and ongoing river conditions also made the service untenable.

“The existing ferry has reached the end of its serviceable life,” she said.

“Because the existing ferry is now so old and requires so much repair, such a large restoration project would take about 18 months and cost an estimated $5 million, which is around a million dollars more than building a new car ferry.

“It’s effectively beyond repair, so this service would have been closed for that length of time anyway.”

Ms Zycki said silting on the southside of the river at Southgate was another problem for the service.

“The river is constantly changing course and there is nothing we can do to prevent the silt building up,” she said.

“We’ve dredged in the past, but it’s only a matter of a couple of weeks and the silt is back. It’s costly to do and has no lasting beneft.”

Ulmarra resident and Clarence Valley Councillor Steve Pickering was devastated and angry at Friday’s announcement which showed the views of the local community meant nothing to the State Government.

“It appears to be State Government cost cutting,” he said. “It looks like Ulmarra, little regional village, is just the recipient of the state government cutting its costs.

“And the community have basically been led up the garden path, thinking that there was the possibility of the ferry being retained. Turns out that was not true.”

Cr Pickering said the closure would have a big impact on the community ranging from school children, farmers, commuting workers and tourists.

He said the extra travelling would result in children changing schools, people switching jobs and relocating out of the area.

“There are people that work at Trenayr, so it could affect their employment if their 10-15 minute trip is now, 40 minutes each way,” he said.

He said local farmers who use the ferry to move slow-moving farm machinery around would not have to take that machinery to Grafton to cross the river.

“When you’ve got slow moving vehicles on the on Big River Way you’ve got drivers that will take risks, they will take risks to overtake these slow moving vehicles,” Cr Pickering said.

“And I don’t think that the safety issues, the safety concerns have been taken into account.”

Cr Pickering dismissed the cost argument for axing the service, saying the government had deliberately run down the service and not put regime in place to retain the service.

“Anybody that has an