Opposition to rebuilding North Creek Bridge has hit a roadblock — in the form of 75-year-old Leona Ross.

The diminutive East Ballina resident says she and her husband Peter, 77, have been pushed around too many times by broken promises, and she’s not about to take it anymore.

The Rosses bought their dream home in 1990, part of a council-developed estate on what was then quiet swampy land behind Eyles Drive. 

They were told the new road would go only as far as Links Avenue to take pressure off Hill Street.

But when Angels Beach Drive opened in 1994, it was pushed all the way to the Coast Road, effectively turning it into a highway.

“It changed our lives overnight,” Mrs Ross said.

 “At times the noise is unbearable.

“We were promised a six-foot-high sound wall, but instead got a mound of bark chips and plants.

“Over the years it’s sunk so low we can see the tops of cars and their lights from inside our lounge room.”

She said residents were also promised a smooth hot mix surface to cut down traffic noise –  but that only came later after locals put up a fight.

“Before they hot mixed it, it was like the trucks were coming through the house,” she said.

“It feels like we’ve been treated like mugs from the start.

“I’ve been paying rates to Ballina Shire for more than 50 years, and this would be the final betrayal after all the broken promises.”

Heritage hurdles

Mrs Ross has kept a thick file of documents, clippings, and the original Environmental Impact Statement, which she says made clear there were to be no houses closer to the road than Eyles Drive.

Instead, to maximise returns for Council, George Pearse Place was added later to the subdivision plans, leaving six backyards just metres from traffic.

Widening the road to four lanes now, she warns, won’t just anger residents –  it will collide with Indigenous heritage protections.

“The road was shifted behind us in the 1990s to avoid a midden and fish trap. 

“That land is now under the Jali Land Council, and protections are much stricter today. I can’t see how four lanes could ever happen.”

‘The bridge always made sense’

For Mrs Ross and her neighbours in George Pearse Place, the answer has always been the same: rebuild North Creek Bridge.

“I’m old enough to remember driving across the old bridge to the beach at Lennox. We’d tie a tractor inner tube on the car and head out to Lake Ainsworth for the day.

“It was short, convenient and it made sense. It still does.

“Those of us on Angels Beach Drive have copped this for 30 years.

“To now tell us it’s going to be widened to four lanes? Well, over my dead body.”