HIGH Street businesses are bracing for the next round of major road works in central Wodonga starting on Monday.
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The stretch between South and Bond streets will be off-limits to vehicles only for up to 12 weeks with Wodonga Council confident of no repeat of the frustrations encountered when initial works in High Street were carried out in 2014.
The latest High Street roadworks will link up with the work carried out four years ago before another section of High Street between Sesame Lane and the water tower is also completed in the 2018-19 financial year.
“We’ve given the business owners within the project zone a lot of notice,” Wodonga Council planning and infrastructure director Leon Schultz said.
“We’ve had very regular discussions with them and kept them updated where we are with the project.
“We’ve learnt through the previous phases that continual communication is absolutely vital.
“We recognise there will be some difficult periods over the next 10 to 12 weeks.
“Of course weather is always a problem when building roads.
“But we believe we are running into a fairly good weather pattern and things won’t be too disruptive.”
The priority works for contractors Excel Gray Bruni will be upgrading the intersection at South and High streets with plans to have it re-opened to traffic within a month.
The present angle parking configurations will be maintained.
Mr Schultz said the existing dip in High Street would eventually be “flattened out” from South Street to the water tower.
“It was always designed that way to change the profile of the road because the centre of the road was a lot higher than the sidewalks,” he said.
The next stage of High Street works were included in a $5.7 million contract which also included the recent upgrade of South Street.
The tender for the Sesame Lane to water tower works will be released shortly and a contract awarded mid-year.
