Growing concerns over cost blowouts, traffic disruption and project management of the Monaro Street Refresh project in Queanbeyan have prompted calls for the NSW Government to step in and take a more active role in overseeing the works.

The project, which has seen the full closure of Monaro Street since March, has diverted between 18,000 and 25,000 vehicle movements a day on to surrounding streets. As part of the Kings Highway, Monaro Street is a key transport corridor linking the region with Canberra and the South Coast.

The pressure intensified this week when Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council approved an additional $3.25 million loan for the project, lifting its total cost from $17.25 million to more than $22 million.

NSW Nationals MLC Nichole Overall said residents and businesses had accepted the full road closure because it was presented as the fastest way to complete the works.

“Residents and businesses were told the pain would be worth it because a full closure rather than the originally agreed partial closure would dramatically shorten construction time,” Mrs Overall said.

“Instead, barely a few months into the project, costs have now blown out by 28 per cent and serious questions remain about basic infrastructure investigations.”

Questions have also been raised over claims that an “unknown” stormwater asset was discovered during construction.

Councillor Mareeta Grundy, who voted against the additional borrowing, said council records publicly identified the drain’s location in 2022 and contract documents required underground services to be identified before work began.

She also cited concerns about transparency, including delays in publishing the construction contract on the council’s GIPA Contracts Register and a lack of publicly available information about engineering assessments and contract variations.

Mrs Overall said scrutiny during parliamentary Budget Estimates hearings had raised questions about the decision to fully close both lanes of the state road.

“The Minister can’t wash her hands of this situation and claim it is solely a council matter when Transport for NSW was directly involved in approving and facilitating the closure,” she said.

She said local businesses continued to report lost trade and uncertainty, despite support measures being introduced after construction had already commenced.

While supporting the need to upgrade Monaro Street, Mrs Overall said the project risked becoming “an expensive lesson in poor planning and inadequate scrutiny” and called on the Roads Minister to intervene.