Farmers want permanent solution after 200-tonne landslide closes Waterfall Way

Farmers affected by the repeated closure of a key Mid North Coast route are sceptical about plans for an assessment of the notorious stretch of road.

The New South Wales government has announced a detailed corridor assessment of Waterfall Way and other roads between Bellingen and Dorrigo, nearly two weeks after a 200-tonne landslide closed the road.

Motorists relying on Waterfall Way have been at the mercy of weather events for decades, with the latest closure the fourth in the past 12 months.

The road is a key tourism and agricultural route between north-west NSW and the coast, vital for the transport of livestock, dairy and produce over the Great Dividing Range.

Murray Grey stud breeder Sue Francis sent cattle to the abattoir at Wingham on the morning of the latest closure.

What would normally be a three or four-hour trip turned into a 24-hour ordeal for her livestock and the driver transporting them.

"It's pretty hard to know that your cattle are on this sort of adventure," Ms Francis said.

"Yes the cattle have gone to slaughter, but we spend months making sure that that last day is one of comfort and as stress-free as possible."

Stress before slaughter, including during handling and transport, can reduce the quality of beef under the Meat Standards Australia (MSA) grading program.

"Because of the stress they went through, I doubt they will grade and fit into the MSA value grid," Ms Francis said.

For dairy farmers on the Dorrigo Plateau, the closure added four hours to the round trip for tankers transporting milk to the processor at Raleigh.

"Lots of the tankers do two runs to Dorrigo a day, so it makes an extremely long day for the drivers," Julie Moore said.

"If they're driving that back road [through Grafton] later in the night, they're on unfamiliar roads.

"It's a sealed surface but it's still not a road you want to be driving a milk tanker around at night."

Solutions to be assessed

NSW Regional Transport and Roads Minister Jenny Aitchsion said she was meeting with engineers and technical experts to assess the corridor and explore possible solutions.

"It is a very difficult situation because the mountain is essentially falling off," she said.

"We've had 150 tonnes coming down over the initial 50 tonnes of material that fell.

"We understand the frustration, but we don't want a situation where the weight of 10 cars comes down and hits someone trying to go about their day."

Ms Aitchison said the NSW government had dedicated more than $100 million for remediation works to address slips in the area caused by severe weather in recent years.

While alternative routes connecting the Mid North Coast and Northern Tablelands were being explored, Ms Aitchison said it would not be a simple fix.

"We need to make sure we have the right data points in place and we do understand what the alternatives are," she said.

"We’re looking at different options to strengthen the surrounding network so we can provide a better option during times of natural disasters."

Farmers sceptical

The assessment is due to be completed by the middle of 2026.

Ms Moore said she would wait to see what concrete action came about as a result.

"There's been quite a few detailed studies done in the past 20 years and we're still at point A," she said.

Ms Francis said short-term repairs were no longer suitable.

"The patching and the band-aids are not working," she said.

"If the assessment is done this year, perhaps they can promise that work will be starting on it by the end of this year as well."