Repairs to important Helensburgh headwall site start

Extensive rehabilitation and repair works to the headwall and surrounds at Camp Gully, adjacent to Whitty Road and Walker Street in Helensburgh is now underway.

The site sustained significant damage from several declared natural disasters between 2021 and 2024. The most recent storm event in April saw major scouring around the site with stormwater washing away vegetation and soil to expose and move huge boulders. Sections of Whitty Road and Walker Street were also undermined, as was a safety handrail.

“Very quickly after the April 2024 natural disaster Council was onsite at this location carrying out urgent assessments and temporary repair work to ensure the residential road was able to be used safely,’’ Lord Mayor of Wollongong Councillor Tania Brown said.

“These temporary works were essential and provided us the opportunity to plan for more extensive rehabilitation work to repair the stormwater infrastructure and surrounding embankments at a later date.’’

This project is partly funded under the Australian Government’s Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements, administered by Transport for NSW.

Prior to last year’s natural disaster, Council was already planning to improve the site’s headwall to ensure it would meet contemporary stormwater management needs with the work scheduled in the annual Delivery Program. At that time the project had been in its design phase. The works, due to start in late April at the site, takes into account last year’s stormwater volume and behaviour.

“Last April, while we had crews making the area safe and planning for the temporary repairs that were completed in June, we also had internal structural, asset and geotechnical engineers out inspecting the site to see the impact from the stormwater,’’ Wollongong City Council Director Infrastructure and Works Joanne Page said.

While the scheduled works are essentially to reinstate the original headwall functionality, we have designed a more robust structure to better manage storm events like the April storm event.

“Through this project we’re ensuring the infrastructure we’re building now is better positioned to manage regular rain events and better manage significant storm events.’’

The project is due to be completed within three months.

Traffic management will be in place to support local residential traffic and maintain a safe worksite.