It was a devasting blow to the Cohuna community when at the last minute, with only three days before the event was to go ahead, organisers had to cancel the Cohuna Bridge to Bridge.

The heart breaking decision to cancel was not taken lightly, however. A revised costing from the traffic management company, which was engaged for traffic control, had the cost blow out due to their safety assessment with new regulations introduced by the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning in December.

However, this did not stop the people of Cohuna from setting about to keep the fundraising effort going.

The revised assessment meant that it now required 20 traffic controllers instead of the two originally planned for at the outset of organising the event.

Steven Fehring, organiser of the event, said that they looked at halving the distance, but that cost was still more than the amount of money that the event would make.

“We are not running the event to make money for other companies we are running the event to raise money for the hospital,” Mr Fehring said.

“That’s why we had to make the decision that it is not going ahead this year, and due to the new regulations, we can presume that the prices are not going to get any cheaper next year.

“The Bridge to Bridge, running from Daltons Bridge to Town Bridge, will probably not happen again along that road.

“We would have to more than triple what we raise just to cover the cost. It’s not like a couple of thousand dollars where we might be able to ask the community for help. It was significant enough that we couldn’t ask people for that sort of money.”

Despite the loss of the official event, there were still many people taking a run or bike ride along the original route on Sunday morning, converting registrations to the virtual event.

According to Mr Fehring the virtual event involves the participant tracking their own run at any time or any location.

“Do it in your own time, when ever you want, wherever you want and it seems that many people have decided that Sunday was a good day to do it,” Mr Fehring said.

“Most people have been happy to change to the virtual, which is really good, and we haven’t had too many people upset by it.”

The Nationals Member for Murray Plains, Peter Walsh, says the Allan Labor government has unleashed a bureaucratic blitz which will destroy community events across regional Victoria.

“The first victim has been Cohuna’s Bridge to Bridge fundraiser, which has seen its traffic management charges jump from $2000 in 2024 to a crippling $22,000 in 2025,” Mr Walsh said.

“The Allan Labor government has blindly absorbed the Austroads Guide to Temporary Traffic Management without, for a second, stopping to consider about its impact at a grassroots level.

“It’s one thing to have national standards for major work projects and road closures, but that has virtually no connection with small community events vital to support life in little country towns.

“Organised by Cohuna Neighbourhood House, with around 300 competitors, the Bridge to Bridge, which has been running for years, except for Labor’s Covid catastrophes, GAME, the company which has the government green light to manage road closures and the stop-and-go workers, dropped the bombshell within a week of the event starting.

“What a joke, and organisers were left with no choice but to cancel.”

There has been some murmuring throughout the Cohuna community as to how the new rules will affect other events such as the Anzac Day march and the annual toy run.

Cohuna District Hospital board member, Margot Henty, said that it was great to see the community reacting but there is a bit of anger amongst people.

“That is not particularly helpful for going forward, we need to feel as though we are all together,” Ms Henty said.

“I feel it’s best that we approach it as “yes this has happened”, but people are still supporting it, so let’s not get to overboard in anger, let’s not head down that track.”

Mr Walsh said a spokesperson from GAME told him “Where a road closed sign is used it must be used in conjunction with a physical barrier, in this case water barrier. Through our internal risk assessment, the proposed methods of unmanned road closures were insufficient to address the risk to race participants, hence the requirement to have a traffic controller stationed at each closed road”.

“They are talking about manning every little dirt road in the neighbourhood – it’s a joke,” Mr Walsh says.

Wendy Lunghusen, Cohuna District Hospitals director of clinical services, said that people who were coming from places such as Canberra, Melbourne, Moama and Bendigo still came and stayed in local accommodation.

“Their registration is a donation, they did it virtually, so they still receive their medal,” Ms Lunghusen said.

“People have said, “no we are still coming” to support your hospital and support your town.

“It has been a beautiful weekend.”

A spokesperson from the Department of Transport and Planning said that Victoria had updated some traffic management regulations to bring the state in line with the Austroads guidelines code of practice.

“We have worked with traffic management companies for two years in the lead up to this change,” the spokesperson said.

“At the end of the day we didn’t have anything to do with it. The traffic management company had to make sure that they had set things up properly, they looked at the site and determined that they needed significantly more traffic controllers than previously.

“Unfortunately it came about way too late and we didn’t know anything about it. The company submitted the application, and we approved it. However, we were not privy to any other conversations until the cancellation announcement was made.

“The last thing we want to do is cancel events. We are all part of the community, and we want to help people do what they need to do.

“Had we had a bit more time we would have loved to have worked with the committee directly to try and find some sort of solution so that the event was safe but still able to go ahead without the exorbitant costs.”

The department has said that they would like to work with organisers to try and find solutions to help the event return next year.

This article appeared in The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper, 6 March 2025.