Community questions flood forum | Coffs Coast News | Local News in Coffs Coast

The council wants to spend 18 million on flood retention when in fact they can’t even be trusted to even know what they’re doing. There seems to be no mention of cloudburst rain flood mitigation works, which actually can cause the most of damage to shopping and business areas around the whole town. This also causes the most damage to many homes all around the town as well.

This is where the bulk of the money should be spent all around the town. Building huge under road culverts to take the water away quicker and make up for the loss of the naturally flowing areas that have now been built upon on the low lying areas.
These now built on areas act like dams causing the flooding and the flow on effect to other areas as well.

They mention no levy walls for some parts of town and as far as the cleaning of the creeks go that should have been a regular ongoing maintenance program anyway.

Low-lying areas for instance like Park Beach Plaza, the Central Shopping Precinct, the Marcia Street light industry estate area, our Coffs Harbour Hospital and business estate area just before that. These are all areas that should have been built higher and are all flood prone areas. They don’t have huge culvert canals to take the water away.

If all they’re going to do is to build retention basins to try and protect “some” homes that should be rebuilt on stilts anyway our money is just being squandered away.
These homes should all be rebuilt and they know it. If you were a homeowner in these areas I’d be going to the council to have your home rebuilt or apply for compensation to buy you out.

It would be cheaper in the long term to replace these homes now and have them 100% protected rather than just a bandaid promise of protection. These home areas can still flood in the right conditions even after the basins are built and they full well know that.

Most flood effected areas around Coffs Harbour need to have either open or underground flood irrigation channels built to take water away from building obstacles like roads and buildings that have been placed there over all the bad planning years. This is to imitate what was taken away from the natural flood flow course. Increasing pipe sizes in most cases will not be sufficient. And the costs to fix this problem caused by council poor planning will cost a lot more than $18 million.
Coffs Harbour Council clearly should not be in charge of any of this development as they are just making it up as they go.

The only way Coffs Harbour City Council is going to get maximum protection for the bulk of the town is to build a large series of open and huge under ground water channel courses. Most of these channels should go under and follow the actual road systems making their way to creek and huge pumping stations where required.

These channels must be huge and the total cost to the town will be well in excess of 18 million and the council is only offering a sugar coating protection for some parts of town that will still only have a partial success rate. They are wasting most of their 18 million and not putting it into the right areas of development.

Enlarging pipes just simply wont meet the requirements for our type of flooding that we have in Coffs Harbour. There aren’t pipes big enough as even the sewerage pipes cant cope, as they full well know when the floods are on.

These channels need to resemble the actions of dry water creeks and to guide the water away from developed areas around the town when required. Currently roads and buildings are blocking the flow. That flow needs to be restored and guided to where we want it to go.

The basins they are building will only offer a “very” small percentage of protection for “some” residents but not guaranteed protection at all. And at a huge cost that will resolve little issues for the bulk of the town. Especially being the commercial sectors.
The one’s that keep our economies going which is another matter I wont go into.

Homes that are in the full flood level areas should be either rebuilt on stilts or purchased and the land reused for other more suitable uses. Wasting millions in these areas for just a partial protection is just an absolute waste of money. Many of these areas will no doubt flood again even after the work has been completed so its just wasted money.

Reducing the flow of upper creeks won’t always stop the flooding in the low-lying areas. Many low-lying areas will continue to flood unless the water is guided away with channels. These areas usually can flood with just cloudburst rain flooding.
The Coffs Harbour City Council needs to get this right for once.