Want a character country house for a few thousand dollars? Sign up to this auction
The release is part of a rolling buyback scheme to relocate and reuse flood-affected homes purchased through the Resilient Homes Program, which aims to remove unsafe homes from the floodplain and help create more affordable housing in the region.
"There is no reserve price on any of these relocatable homes," said the NSW Relocation Authority website.
"That means potentially anyone could purchase a buyback home for one dollar if there are no other bidders."
Buyers also need to be aware that what they are buying is the house only, with the land not included.
They also need to be prepared to come to the auction, which is being held at Lismore Heights Sports Club with a deposit of 50 per cent of the purchase price up to $1000, payable on the night on July 8.
Nearly 20 houses have already been sold at auction the past week via PRD Northern Rivers, with a further 10 homes set for auction on July 8 through First National Wal Murray & Co.
At the recent auctions, the cheapest buy reported was a home in Kyogle that sold for a mere $347, along with two in Lismore for $2,300 and $2,500.
The most expensive sale went to a South Lismore weatherboard property that had been renovated since the 2022 floods and closed for $101,000.
That property was complete with a brand-new kitchen with shaker-style cabinetry, as well as a new bathroom.
The upcoming public auction on July 8 will offer 10 houses in a similar weatherboard style, such as 12 and 16 Simmons Street, North Lismore.
Both timber homes have pitched rooflines, three bedrooms, decorative 10-foot ceilings, polished timber floors, ornate timber features, and stained-glass windows.
First National Wal Murray & Co agent Cory Byrne has seen most of the relocatable homes sell between $6,000 and $100,000, and said it's a unique opportunity to grab a character house.
"They're nice homes...they're good for what they are. If people have got the blocks of land to move them on to, absolutely, it's a good opportunity."
A range of 30 homes in total will have been on offer in the buyback program, from charming old timber homes to those needing more work to bring them back to their former glory.
The houses have varying states of damage, which will obviously affect interest and price, but the program ensures that the beautiful character and heritage of these properties is preserved.
Many homes feature front verandas, high ceilings, and traditional features like picture rails, French doors and ornate ceilings.
"While we need to remove these homes from the floodplain and move people out of harm's way, we don't want the region to lose its character along the way," Parliamentary Secretary for Disaster Recovery Janelle Saffin said.
"Many of these homes are made from timbers that are rare and very valuable.
"To have them picked up, moved to a new location, spruced up and have a new family move in is a fantastic result for the whole community."
While these prices will obviously attract first-home buyers, Mr Byrne said the program has been popular among existing landholders in the wider region.
"We've been seeing interest mostly from landholders around the area, people that might have farms or a vacant block, who can put a second dwelling on [their land] without trying to build new," Mr Byrne said.
For those worried about unforeseen financial surprises when fixing up the houses, Mr Byrne said that buyers will be given a full report of any property they're considering.
What you are buying
"All the homes come with a HAZMAT report that the RA has done, so anyone interested can contact us and get a copy of each of those for all the houses.
"The report tells you if there's any asbestos, mould or anything else - it's all disclosed."
Buyers should be aware there are extra fees to consider in the total purchase price.
The RA estimates the average cost of relocation to sit between $80,000 and $140,000.
However, buyers should also factor in design, approvals, compliance and site works.
If successful, you'll have up to 12 months to relocate the home from the RA's land, and properties can only be moved to sites that are outside of the Priority 1, 2 and 3 zones according to RA Flood Prioritisation Maps.
But if you're game to take on the challenge, this could be a rare opportunity to secure a character-filled home rich in stories and heritage for an incredibly low price.
Three of the best
Other finds from the 10 houses that are for auction on July 8 include the house at 177 Magellan Street, Lismore, which features a charming front verandah, high ceilings and tongue and groove internal walls.
This three- bedroom house, currently located at 120 Laurel Avenue, Lismore features high decorated celings throughout, timber windows and french doors.
A wide back verandah and polished timber floors throughout make this house situated currently at 25 Simmons Street, North Lismore a good buy.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Advertiser
a day ago
- The Advertiser
Big Battery Boom: should regional Australia be worried about fires?
Australia is in the midst of a big battery boom, with hundreds of mega-batteries soon to be dotted across regional areas. But the boom has brought concerns from country residents, farmers, and even volunteer firefighters about the potential fire risks it could bring with it. To find out more, ACM went inside an operational big battery to learn how it worked and how risky it really was. Australia is in the grips of an energy revolution that is transforming many regional areas. Wind and solar farms have been the most obvious part of that change, but batteries are the next crucial piece: a power source when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. There are 30 big batteries operating across the country - seven in Victoria, six each in NSW, Queensland and SA, and eight in WA. These 30 batteries can store 3 gigawatts (GW) of power. But forecasts by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) show Australia will need at least 22GW by 2030 and 49GW by 2050. That's a lot more batteries, and most of them will be built in regional areas. Ballarat, Warrnambool, Albury-Wodonga and Newcastle will all have a handful of batteries around them in the next five years, but nearly every regional town will have at least one nearby. ACM travelled to Gippsland in south-east Victoria to visit a big battery built on the site of the former Hazelwood coal-fired power station. Hazelwood was Australia's dirtiest power plant when it was decommissioned in 2017. Its owners - the French energy company Engie - decided to replace the power station with a battery, to make use of the huge power lines that once plugged into the plant. Compared to the towering chimneys of the coal plant, Hazelwood's big battery is pretty modest. It resembles a large gravel car park, but instead of cars, it is dotted with dozens of white metal cubes arranged in rows of six. Each cube contains 14 batteries about the same size as you would find in a small electric vehicle. The battery is just 18 months old, coming online in December 2023 at a cost of somewhere near $150 million. At 150 megawatts (MW), it is equivalent to 30,000 rooftop solar systems generating for an hour. The whole site emits a low roar - the sound of hundreds of industrial fans cooling the battery units. Batteries have an unfortunate association with fire in the public imagination, driven largely by regular videos of electric scooters, e-bikes and electric cars catching on fire. Engie media manager Dylan Quinell says there is a wide spectrum of fire safety protection depending on the type of battery use. "At the bottom, in terms of regulation, you'd have things like electric scooters," Mr Quinell says. "EVs have much better fail-safes and protections, but then with a BESS it's much higher again." But big batteries have caught on fire in the past. The Victorian government's Tesla battery outside Geelong caught fire during testing in July 2021. The battery had been offline at the time of the fire, meaning its monitoring and prevention measures were off. Another Tesla battery near Rockhampton in Queensland also caught fire in September 2023, and one of the world's largest batteries caught fire in California in January 2025. It has spurred concerns in some regional communities about the bushfire risk big batteries could pose. An ABC report in May 2025 revealed CFA volunteers in Dederang in northern Victoria were opposed to a proposed big battery near the town. CFA member Doug Connors said volunteers weren't equipped to fight battery fires. "As a brigade, we're equipped and trained to fight grass and scrub fires," Mr Connors said. The coordinator of Hazelwood's big battery, Jonathan Vila, says he can understand the concerns, but the Hazelwood site was extremely safe. "The batteries here are made from lithium iron phosphate, which is less volatile than previous battery technologies," Mr Vila says. "Each battery cube is fan and liquid cooled and has a system that sends an alert if there's any problem. Mr Vila says each cube can isolate from the rest of the big battery system instantaneously, and there's a temperature trigger that fills the cube with chemical firefighting foam if it gets too hot. "The US manufacturer, Fluence, has done extensive testing, trying really hard to set them on fire. It was actually a huge effort. "When they did manage to start a fire, it was totally contained within the cube, so it never jumped from cube to cube." All of the previous high-profile big battery fires were using older, different technology than the Hazelwood battery. Mr Quinnell says a key part of the approval and construction process at the Hazelwood battery was engaging local firefighters in the planning process. "The local Fire Rescue Victoria and CFA crews have come to the site to review it and understand it," he says. "Once they saw the safety mechanisms and the reality of the battery, they were really comfortable with it. "I think whenever a developer does a decent job, it really has to bring the community along with it and make sure they're involved in the process." While the Hazelwood battery is only 150MW, there are already plans to expand it. The existing power lines coming into Hazelwood have the capacity to carry 1.6GW, more than 10 times the existing battery output. The next phase is likely to be much quicker and much cheaper to build. Just a decade ago big batteries were seven times more expensive than they are in 2025, with the latest forecasts predicting a further 14 per cent drop in the next year. The Hazelwood expansion will be mirrored Australia-wide, with more than 20GW of big battery projects in the planning pipeline. More than 60 batteries are being built across the country, with a further 83 passing the approval process and 57 awaiting approval. Australia is in the midst of a big battery boom, with hundreds of mega-batteries soon to be dotted across regional areas. But the boom has brought concerns from country residents, farmers, and even volunteer firefighters about the potential fire risks it could bring with it. To find out more, ACM went inside an operational big battery to learn how it worked and how risky it really was. Australia is in the grips of an energy revolution that is transforming many regional areas. Wind and solar farms have been the most obvious part of that change, but batteries are the next crucial piece: a power source when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. There are 30 big batteries operating across the country - seven in Victoria, six each in NSW, Queensland and SA, and eight in WA. These 30 batteries can store 3 gigawatts (GW) of power. But forecasts by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) show Australia will need at least 22GW by 2030 and 49GW by 2050. That's a lot more batteries, and most of them will be built in regional areas. Ballarat, Warrnambool, Albury-Wodonga and Newcastle will all have a handful of batteries around them in the next five years, but nearly every regional town will have at least one nearby. ACM travelled to Gippsland in south-east Victoria to visit a big battery built on the site of the former Hazelwood coal-fired power station. Hazelwood was Australia's dirtiest power plant when it was decommissioned in 2017. Its owners - the French energy company Engie - decided to replace the power station with a battery, to make use of the huge power lines that once plugged into the plant. Compared to the towering chimneys of the coal plant, Hazelwood's big battery is pretty modest. It resembles a large gravel car park, but instead of cars, it is dotted with dozens of white metal cubes arranged in rows of six. Each cube contains 14 batteries about the same size as you would find in a small electric vehicle. The battery is just 18 months old, coming online in December 2023 at a cost of somewhere near $150 million. At 150 megawatts (MW), it is equivalent to 30,000 rooftop solar systems generating for an hour. The whole site emits a low roar - the sound of hundreds of industrial fans cooling the battery units. Batteries have an unfortunate association with fire in the public imagination, driven largely by regular videos of electric scooters, e-bikes and electric cars catching on fire. Engie media manager Dylan Quinell says there is a wide spectrum of fire safety protection depending on the type of battery use. "At the bottom, in terms of regulation, you'd have things like electric scooters," Mr Quinell says. "EVs have much better fail-safes and protections, but then with a BESS it's much higher again." But big batteries have caught on fire in the past. The Victorian government's Tesla battery outside Geelong caught fire during testing in July 2021. The battery had been offline at the time of the fire, meaning its monitoring and prevention measures were off. Another Tesla battery near Rockhampton in Queensland also caught fire in September 2023, and one of the world's largest batteries caught fire in California in January 2025. It has spurred concerns in some regional communities about the bushfire risk big batteries could pose. An ABC report in May 2025 revealed CFA volunteers in Dederang in northern Victoria were opposed to a proposed big battery near the town. CFA member Doug Connors said volunteers weren't equipped to fight battery fires. "As a brigade, we're equipped and trained to fight grass and scrub fires," Mr Connors said. The coordinator of Hazelwood's big battery, Jonathan Vila, says he can understand the concerns, but the Hazelwood site was extremely safe. "The batteries here are made from lithium iron phosphate, which is less volatile than previous battery technologies," Mr Vila says. "Each battery cube is fan and liquid cooled and has a system that sends an alert if there's any problem. Mr Vila says each cube can isolate from the rest of the big battery system instantaneously, and there's a temperature trigger that fills the cube with chemical firefighting foam if it gets too hot. "The US manufacturer, Fluence, has done extensive testing, trying really hard to set them on fire. It was actually a huge effort. "When they did manage to start a fire, it was totally contained within the cube, so it never jumped from cube to cube." All of the previous high-profile big battery fires were using older, different technology than the Hazelwood battery. Mr Quinnell says a key part of the approval and construction process at the Hazelwood battery was engaging local firefighters in the planning process. "The local Fire Rescue Victoria and CFA crews have come to the site to review it and understand it," he says. "Once they saw the safety mechanisms and the reality of the battery, they were really comfortable with it. "I think whenever a developer does a decent job, it really has to bring the community along with it and make sure they're involved in the process." While the Hazelwood battery is only 150MW, there are already plans to expand it. The existing power lines coming into Hazelwood have the capacity to carry 1.6GW, more than 10 times the existing battery output. The next phase is likely to be much quicker and much cheaper to build. Just a decade ago big batteries were seven times more expensive than they are in 2025, with the latest forecasts predicting a further 14 per cent drop in the next year. The Hazelwood expansion will be mirrored Australia-wide, with more than 20GW of big battery projects in the planning pipeline. More than 60 batteries are being built across the country, with a further 83 passing the approval process and 57 awaiting approval. Australia is in the midst of a big battery boom, with hundreds of mega-batteries soon to be dotted across regional areas. But the boom has brought concerns from country residents, farmers, and even volunteer firefighters about the potential fire risks it could bring with it. To find out more, ACM went inside an operational big battery to learn how it worked and how risky it really was. Australia is in the grips of an energy revolution that is transforming many regional areas. Wind and solar farms have been the most obvious part of that change, but batteries are the next crucial piece: a power source when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. There are 30 big batteries operating across the country - seven in Victoria, six each in NSW, Queensland and SA, and eight in WA. These 30 batteries can store 3 gigawatts (GW) of power. But forecasts by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) show Australia will need at least 22GW by 2030 and 49GW by 2050. That's a lot more batteries, and most of them will be built in regional areas. Ballarat, Warrnambool, Albury-Wodonga and Newcastle will all have a handful of batteries around them in the next five years, but nearly every regional town will have at least one nearby. ACM travelled to Gippsland in south-east Victoria to visit a big battery built on the site of the former Hazelwood coal-fired power station. Hazelwood was Australia's dirtiest power plant when it was decommissioned in 2017. Its owners - the French energy company Engie - decided to replace the power station with a battery, to make use of the huge power lines that once plugged into the plant. Compared to the towering chimneys of the coal plant, Hazelwood's big battery is pretty modest. It resembles a large gravel car park, but instead of cars, it is dotted with dozens of white metal cubes arranged in rows of six. Each cube contains 14 batteries about the same size as you would find in a small electric vehicle. The battery is just 18 months old, coming online in December 2023 at a cost of somewhere near $150 million. At 150 megawatts (MW), it is equivalent to 30,000 rooftop solar systems generating for an hour. The whole site emits a low roar - the sound of hundreds of industrial fans cooling the battery units. Batteries have an unfortunate association with fire in the public imagination, driven largely by regular videos of electric scooters, e-bikes and electric cars catching on fire. Engie media manager Dylan Quinell says there is a wide spectrum of fire safety protection depending on the type of battery use. "At the bottom, in terms of regulation, you'd have things like electric scooters," Mr Quinell says. "EVs have much better fail-safes and protections, but then with a BESS it's much higher again." But big batteries have caught on fire in the past. The Victorian government's Tesla battery outside Geelong caught fire during testing in July 2021. The battery had been offline at the time of the fire, meaning its monitoring and prevention measures were off. Another Tesla battery near Rockhampton in Queensland also caught fire in September 2023, and one of the world's largest batteries caught fire in California in January 2025. It has spurred concerns in some regional communities about the bushfire risk big batteries could pose. An ABC report in May 2025 revealed CFA volunteers in Dederang in northern Victoria were opposed to a proposed big battery near the town. CFA member Doug Connors said volunteers weren't equipped to fight battery fires. "As a brigade, we're equipped and trained to fight grass and scrub fires," Mr Connors said. The coordinator of Hazelwood's big battery, Jonathan Vila, says he can understand the concerns, but the Hazelwood site was extremely safe. "The batteries here are made from lithium iron phosphate, which is less volatile than previous battery technologies," Mr Vila says. "Each battery cube is fan and liquid cooled and has a system that sends an alert if there's any problem. Mr Vila says each cube can isolate from the rest of the big battery system instantaneously, and there's a temperature trigger that fills the cube with chemical firefighting foam if it gets too hot. "The US manufacturer, Fluence, has done extensive testing, trying really hard to set them on fire. It was actually a huge effort. "When they did manage to start a fire, it was totally contained within the cube, so it never jumped from cube to cube." All of the previous high-profile big battery fires were using older, different technology than the Hazelwood battery. Mr Quinnell says a key part of the approval and construction process at the Hazelwood battery was engaging local firefighters in the planning process. "The local Fire Rescue Victoria and CFA crews have come to the site to review it and understand it," he says. "Once they saw the safety mechanisms and the reality of the battery, they were really comfortable with it. "I think whenever a developer does a decent job, it really has to bring the community along with it and make sure they're involved in the process." While the Hazelwood battery is only 150MW, there are already plans to expand it. The existing power lines coming into Hazelwood have the capacity to carry 1.6GW, more than 10 times the existing battery output. The next phase is likely to be much quicker and much cheaper to build. Just a decade ago big batteries were seven times more expensive than they are in 2025, with the latest forecasts predicting a further 14 per cent drop in the next year. The Hazelwood expansion will be mirrored Australia-wide, with more than 20GW of big battery projects in the planning pipeline. More than 60 batteries are being built across the country, with a further 83 passing the approval process and 57 awaiting approval. Australia is in the midst of a big battery boom, with hundreds of mega-batteries soon to be dotted across regional areas. But the boom has brought concerns from country residents, farmers, and even volunteer firefighters about the potential fire risks it could bring with it. To find out more, ACM went inside an operational big battery to learn how it worked and how risky it really was. Australia is in the grips of an energy revolution that is transforming many regional areas. Wind and solar farms have been the most obvious part of that change, but batteries are the next crucial piece: a power source when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. There are 30 big batteries operating across the country - seven in Victoria, six each in NSW, Queensland and SA, and eight in WA. These 30 batteries can store 3 gigawatts (GW) of power. But forecasts by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) show Australia will need at least 22GW by 2030 and 49GW by 2050. That's a lot more batteries, and most of them will be built in regional areas. Ballarat, Warrnambool, Albury-Wodonga and Newcastle will all have a handful of batteries around them in the next five years, but nearly every regional town will have at least one nearby. ACM travelled to Gippsland in south-east Victoria to visit a big battery built on the site of the former Hazelwood coal-fired power station. Hazelwood was Australia's dirtiest power plant when it was decommissioned in 2017. Its owners - the French energy company Engie - decided to replace the power station with a battery, to make use of the huge power lines that once plugged into the plant. Compared to the towering chimneys of the coal plant, Hazelwood's big battery is pretty modest. It resembles a large gravel car park, but instead of cars, it is dotted with dozens of white metal cubes arranged in rows of six. Each cube contains 14 batteries about the same size as you would find in a small electric vehicle. The battery is just 18 months old, coming online in December 2023 at a cost of somewhere near $150 million. At 150 megawatts (MW), it is equivalent to 30,000 rooftop solar systems generating for an hour. The whole site emits a low roar - the sound of hundreds of industrial fans cooling the battery units. Batteries have an unfortunate association with fire in the public imagination, driven largely by regular videos of electric scooters, e-bikes and electric cars catching on fire. Engie media manager Dylan Quinell says there is a wide spectrum of fire safety protection depending on the type of battery use. "At the bottom, in terms of regulation, you'd have things like electric scooters," Mr Quinell says. "EVs have much better fail-safes and protections, but then with a BESS it's much higher again." But big batteries have caught on fire in the past. The Victorian government's Tesla battery outside Geelong caught fire during testing in July 2021. The battery had been offline at the time of the fire, meaning its monitoring and prevention measures were off. Another Tesla battery near Rockhampton in Queensland also caught fire in September 2023, and one of the world's largest batteries caught fire in California in January 2025. It has spurred concerns in some regional communities about the bushfire risk big batteries could pose. An ABC report in May 2025 revealed CFA volunteers in Dederang in northern Victoria were opposed to a proposed big battery near the town. CFA member Doug Connors said volunteers weren't equipped to fight battery fires. "As a brigade, we're equipped and trained to fight grass and scrub fires," Mr Connors said. The coordinator of Hazelwood's big battery, Jonathan Vila, says he can understand the concerns, but the Hazelwood site was extremely safe. "The batteries here are made from lithium iron phosphate, which is less volatile than previous battery technologies," Mr Vila says. "Each battery cube is fan and liquid cooled and has a system that sends an alert if there's any problem. Mr Vila says each cube can isolate from the rest of the big battery system instantaneously, and there's a temperature trigger that fills the cube with chemical firefighting foam if it gets too hot. "The US manufacturer, Fluence, has done extensive testing, trying really hard to set them on fire. It was actually a huge effort. "When they did manage to start a fire, it was totally contained within the cube, so it never jumped from cube to cube." All of the previous high-profile big battery fires were using older, different technology than the Hazelwood battery. Mr Quinnell says a key part of the approval and construction process at the Hazelwood battery was engaging local firefighters in the planning process. "The local Fire Rescue Victoria and CFA crews have come to the site to review it and understand it," he says. "Once they saw the safety mechanisms and the reality of the battery, they were really comfortable with it. "I think whenever a developer does a decent job, it really has to bring the community along with it and make sure they're involved in the process." While the Hazelwood battery is only 150MW, there are already plans to expand it. The existing power lines coming into Hazelwood have the capacity to carry 1.6GW, more than 10 times the existing battery output. The next phase is likely to be much quicker and much cheaper to build. Just a decade ago big batteries were seven times more expensive than they are in 2025, with the latest forecasts predicting a further 14 per cent drop in the next year. The Hazelwood expansion will be mirrored Australia-wide, with more than 20GW of big battery projects in the planning pipeline. More than 60 batteries are being built across the country, with a further 83 passing the approval process and 57 awaiting approval.
The Advertiser
3 days ago
- The Advertiser
Milestone for major highway set to allow drivers to skip 12 traffic lights
A major milestone in the Coffs Harbour bypass has been reached with the 160-metre Roberts Hill tunnel, the third and final tunnel on the project, finished. The bypass will allow motorists on the notoriously congested Pacific Highway on the NSW North Coast to skip up to 12 sets of traffic lights, cutting 12 minutes off travel times. It can take up to an hour to get through this section of highway during the busy summer holiday periods. With three tunnels now broken through, work will shift to preparing them for traffic. Half a million tonnes of rock was removed during the massive excavation effort, using 280 tonnes of explosives across 570 controlled blasts. READ MORE: Amazon, NBN Co to bring low Earth orbit satellite service to regional Australia NSW Minister for the North Coast Janelle Saffin described it as a "magnificent" achievement. "As a long-time resident of the NSW North Coast region, I know what a difference this will make to those who call it home," she said. "I look forward to driving through each of these tunnels once the bypass is open." Federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine King said the project had been a "long time coming". "When we were last in government, then Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese oversaw the construction of the Kempsey bypass and key road upgrades," she said. "It is fantastic to now see this project near completion." The bypass is expected to be open for traffic by late 2026. A major milestone in the Coffs Harbour bypass has been reached with the 160-metre Roberts Hill tunnel, the third and final tunnel on the project, finished. The bypass will allow motorists on the notoriously congested Pacific Highway on the NSW North Coast to skip up to 12 sets of traffic lights, cutting 12 minutes off travel times. It can take up to an hour to get through this section of highway during the busy summer holiday periods. With three tunnels now broken through, work will shift to preparing them for traffic. Half a million tonnes of rock was removed during the massive excavation effort, using 280 tonnes of explosives across 570 controlled blasts. READ MORE: Amazon, NBN Co to bring low Earth orbit satellite service to regional Australia NSW Minister for the North Coast Janelle Saffin described it as a "magnificent" achievement. "As a long-time resident of the NSW North Coast region, I know what a difference this will make to those who call it home," she said. "I look forward to driving through each of these tunnels once the bypass is open." Federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine King said the project had been a "long time coming". "When we were last in government, then Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese oversaw the construction of the Kempsey bypass and key road upgrades," she said. "It is fantastic to now see this project near completion." The bypass is expected to be open for traffic by late 2026. A major milestone in the Coffs Harbour bypass has been reached with the 160-metre Roberts Hill tunnel, the third and final tunnel on the project, finished. The bypass will allow motorists on the notoriously congested Pacific Highway on the NSW North Coast to skip up to 12 sets of traffic lights, cutting 12 minutes off travel times. It can take up to an hour to get through this section of highway during the busy summer holiday periods. With three tunnels now broken through, work will shift to preparing them for traffic. Half a million tonnes of rock was removed during the massive excavation effort, using 280 tonnes of explosives across 570 controlled blasts. READ MORE: Amazon, NBN Co to bring low Earth orbit satellite service to regional Australia NSW Minister for the North Coast Janelle Saffin described it as a "magnificent" achievement. "As a long-time resident of the NSW North Coast region, I know what a difference this will make to those who call it home," she said. "I look forward to driving through each of these tunnels once the bypass is open." Federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine King said the project had been a "long time coming". "When we were last in government, then Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese oversaw the construction of the Kempsey bypass and key road upgrades," she said. "It is fantastic to now see this project near completion." The bypass is expected to be open for traffic by late 2026. A major milestone in the Coffs Harbour bypass has been reached with the 160-metre Roberts Hill tunnel, the third and final tunnel on the project, finished. The bypass will allow motorists on the notoriously congested Pacific Highway on the NSW North Coast to skip up to 12 sets of traffic lights, cutting 12 minutes off travel times. It can take up to an hour to get through this section of highway during the busy summer holiday periods. With three tunnels now broken through, work will shift to preparing them for traffic. Half a million tonnes of rock was removed during the massive excavation effort, using 280 tonnes of explosives across 570 controlled blasts. READ MORE: Amazon, NBN Co to bring low Earth orbit satellite service to regional Australia NSW Minister for the North Coast Janelle Saffin described it as a "magnificent" achievement. "As a long-time resident of the NSW North Coast region, I know what a difference this will make to those who call it home," she said. "I look forward to driving through each of these tunnels once the bypass is open." Federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine King said the project had been a "long time coming". "When we were last in government, then Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese oversaw the construction of the Kempsey bypass and key road upgrades," she said. "It is fantastic to now see this project near completion." The bypass is expected to be open for traffic by late 2026.
Daily Telegraph
4 days ago
- Daily Telegraph
Flood-hit properties set for auction without reserve
Property bidders have the chance to snap up homes for prices that could be as low as $1 at a NSW auction Tuesday night. As part of the State and Commonwealth Government's Resilient Homes Program, nine relocatable flood-affected homes will go under the hammer. There is no reserve price on these houses, meaning bidding could potentially start and end at $1 if this is the only offer placed. The homes are located in Burringbar and South Murwillumbah in the Northern Rivers, a region significantly impacted by flooding in 2022. As part of the $880m buy back scheme within the Resilient Homes Program, the NSW Reconstruction Authority purchased several flood-affected and flood-prone homes from owners who could not claim insurance. The homes – not the land – are then placed under auction, with successful bidders having 12 months to relocate the houses to flood-free land. Real estate agent Scott Reading of First National Murwillumbah said the upcoming auction offerings attracted mixed interest. 'There's been a lot of inquiry with a lot of people are interested,' he said. 'I feel like it will be a pretty big night.' Mr Reading said 'a lot of locals' have been keen to snap up the homes for a bargain. 'But a fair bit of interest has come from out of town as well,' he said. 'So a bit of a mix of both.' Regarding his expectations for the prices of the homes under the hammer, Mr Reading said the auctions would be unpredictable. 'Look, it's really open,' he said. 'I'm not sure where the prices are going to end up.' Mr Reading said 37 Wardrop St and 6077 Tweed Valley Way had attracted the most interest from inquirers so far. 'They're just nice Queenslander homes and I think those are really popular,' he said. Both are spacious three-bedroom, two-bathroom family homes. Tuesday's auction will be the fourth round of NSW Reconstruction Authority (NSWRA) buyback house auctions, following a positive community response to previous sales. In previous auction rounds, homes have sold for as low as $347 and as high as $101,000. Minister for Recovery Janelle Saffin said the program was a 'a creative way of keeping these houses in the community.' 'By auctioning these houses, we are helping save historic homes impacted by the floods and making a small but meaningful contribution to the housing challenges we face in the Northern Rivers,' she said. The auctions will take place at 6pm tonight at Murwillumbah Services Club.
