Ed,

It is agreed that the old bridge is a bit of an eyesore from the new one, but to say the bridge has had no maintenance is far from true.

Comparing it to the Sydney Harbour bridge is a bit of a stretch. They share the same birthday, but Grafton is not subject to continuous corrosion inducing salt smog of Sydney.

From a road point of view:

The Grafton bridge has had some of the land-based pylons strengthened.

The unique brick arches under the approach spans have had work done.

The timber planked footway were continuously maintained until they were replaced with the aluminium ones.

The timber lift span was replaced with a locally manufactured steel structure.

The road deck joints have been repaired and the concrete deck has been resurfaced with a bituminous product. 

Investigations showed that the existing kinked approach spans could be replaced with a simple curved structure utilising the existing piers. Not cheap, but doable.

Tentative multi million-dollar quotes to repaint the bridge were obtained last century. Complex three-way ownership doesn’t help any work to proceed. 

From my experience, politicians don’t write letters – they just flick pass them on to some bureaucratic lackey to put something together.

Geoff Howard, South Grafton