The mayor of Bluewater suspects Bluewater is one of many rural municipalities that have been denied top-up funding from the province for infrastructure projects.
Tyler Hessel said his particular concern is the bridge on Airport Line just north of the cemetery, which requires repairs that would cost about $2-million to complete.
An application was sent through the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund.
“We applied for that hoping that we might receive something to top up that bridge project," said Hessel. "Unfortunately we were declined and I would suggest that many different communities in the rural Ontario area or even in Huron County have applied for top-up funding from the province to see if they could help with some of their infrastructure needs and not many got that.”
Hessel stated most similar requests from rural municipalities were also denied. He said most rural municipalities have more kilometres of road to maintain than urban cities and the increasing cost has become a challenge.
At this point, Hessel said council will put money into reserves for the bridge and hope to be a little more successful in applying again next year.
