Brown Mountain natural disaster recovery

Work will start next month to repair the largest of nine landslips on Snowy Mountains Highway at Brown Mountain caused by severe natural disaster events that hit the South Coast in 2022.

The work will begin on Monday 8 April 2024 at a site located about 800 metres west of the Brown Mountain Power Station and is expected to take 20 weeks to complete, weather permitting.

This work is needed to repair a landslip covering an area about the size of a suburban house block and almost double the size of the next largest site on Brown Mountain.

This major engineering task will add strength to the mountain slope where the landslip occurred, prevent further erosion and repair damage to the road.

All the work will be carried out with large machinery and workers operating in an area about as wide as a standard single car garage.

A 200-metre section of road will be reduced to a single lane with temporary barriers and traffic lights in place 24-hours for the duration of the work.

Motorists are advised to allow an extra five minutes to travel times and drive to conditions.

Successive natural disasters in recent years, including bushfires and floods, have caused significant damage across NSW state roads on the South Coast.

After severe storms in 2022 and 2023, Transport for NSW is working to repair landslip damage at more than 100 sites on several key state roads.

This includes nine landslips on the Snowy Mountains Highway at Brown Mountain.

Repairs have been completed at three of these sites.

Planning is under way for repairs at the remaining sites.

Landslip sites can require complex repairs. 

The repairs depend on factors at each site and could include:

• removing loose rocks, soil and vegetation
• stabilising and adding strength to the damaged slope
• upgrading stormwater drains
• repairing road surfaces and replacing guardrails.

Factors out of Transport’s control can cause delays to our progress with repairs, including:

• workload – the statewide increase in demand for qualified contractors, equipment and resources could mean longer timeframes for repairs.
• worksite – steep and narrow sites could create some unexpected challenges.
• weather - heavy rain and storms could make working conditions unsafe.

Transport follows a thorough process before starting natural disaster recovery repairs. This process includes:

• geotechnical, biodiversity and heritage surveys
• design planning
• environmental assessment
• final design
• procurement to appoint specialist contractors to undertake the repairs.

• Work to start on repairs to largest landslip site on Brown Mountain