In a report tabled at the May meeting, councillors were told that wet weather in the early part of the year was the culprit.

March 2017 was the wettest March in more than two decades with records indicating the local government area received about 700 millimetres of rain year to date, councillors were told.

The extensive rainfall meant that council’s capital works program for the financial year ‘has been significantly delayed due to the exceptional wet weather’. “For many projects, this has had a significant effect on progress during 2017 to date,” the report said.

“Wet weather is not only directly affecting our projects but is also affecting our sub contractors, for example, bitumen spray seal contractors and road stabilisation contractors, who are held up on projects for other clients across the state and particularly in the North Coast region where the wet weather has been most concentrated.

“The weather has also reduced our ability to undertake the preparation for our proactive resealing maintenance works due to the significant increase in reactive maintenance activities requiring the reallocation of staff.”

Staff foreshadow an under-expanded works program compared to 2015/16 as a result of these weather delays.

Council estimates a loss of between 50-80 per cent of the past 12 or more weeks to wet weather and associated clean-ups.

The impact of wet weather was not lost on Cr Justin Levido.

“This is a detailed report. I think it reflects some of the bad weather we have had since January,” he said.

“This (report) outlines how we are going to explain this to the community and how it impacts on our bottom line.”

Cr Sharon Griffiths asked the general manager Craig Swift-McNair what were the impacts of moving projects forward into the next financial year.

“Staff are working through the the draft operational plan to sort out the impacts,” he said.

“You can’t push $19m of works back into the following year without an impact.”

Some of the $18,749,890 in works potentially affected by the wet weather include:

Hyndmans Creek Bridge Replacement on Comboyne Road; Pappinbarra Road rehabilitation; Houston Mitchell Drive; Construction of the multi-use synthetic field at Wayne Richards Stage 5; Unsealed road maintenance; sealed road maintenance; and, over 100 additional rain related customer requests.

​According to weatherzone, the Port Macquarie airport has received 877.8mm of rain to May over a total of 80 days.