Wagga City Council has apologised to the community for delays to the upgrades on Kooringal Road, blaming poor weather as the main barrier to getting the job done.
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The comments follow residents expressing their frustrations with the impacts of the road closures, which have been in place since mid-April.
The project was meant to be completed by June 30, but eight days on the council said it was still short 800 metres of where it wanted to be.
Workers will now put a waterproof seal over the currently uncovered 300 metres with the hope the road will be reopened by Monday, weather permitting.
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Warren Faulkner, the council's director of operations, said he acknowledges they have faced difficulties in completing the job.
"We are making the decision to seal what's open up over there at the moment given the forecast for the next couple of months of above-average rainfall, rather than prolonging the project and the problems associated," he said.
"We will hopefully seal this week. Again, weather dependent ... and then demobilise from the site and look to come back there again in the summer months."
Mr Faulkner apologised to the community for the impact the road closures have had and thanked them for their patience.
He said the council would be examine their processes to improve future projects. Timing delays have impacted the budget, Mr Faulkner said but added that the council had taken steps to mitigate this where possible.
"When we have got to dry the pavement out, we will take the workforce to another job to do other works if we can rather than loading that job up with inefficient time, so to speak," he said.
"We are now eight days past our completion date. I can understand the frustrations there. I apologise for those."
Mr Faulkner explained when undertaking the construction, workers removed the weather-proof seal, and once the gravel becomes wet, it needs to dry before it can be resealed.
"When we get a climate that is cooler without the drying ability, certainly the road will take a lot longer to build," he said.
"You can't put a seal on the wet gravel. It will blister and pothole ... with the cooler 14 degree temps we are experiencing, it certainly takes a lot longer for that gravel to dry out."
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