Following the weather event that culminated in Wollondilly being declared a disaster region, Wollondilly Council and Transport Heritage NSW have jointly agreed to postpone the event to later in the year.
An inspection of the festival site yesterday afternoon revealed the ground's saturation level would not support the necessary infrastructure for the event, due to weeks of storms and flooding. Given many access routes to Thirlmere have sustained significant damage, this difficult decision was made.
Mayor Matt Gould said, "This decision was not taken lightly, and has been made in order to respect the integrity of this well-loved event. Whilst this is extremely disappointing for everyone, it does means that the deferred event will not require scaling back and will reflect instead, the grandeur of such a premier steam event for the region."
"Our Council staff are continuing to manage road and bridge closures, landslips and significant damage to our road network and some of our community members are still cleaning up from the damage done to their properties, so by postponing we will make it possible to have a true celebration of the return of the Festival for everyone."
"We intend to come back bigger and better than ever later in the year and we would like to thank everyone for their understanding in what have been some challenging circumstances for the town of Thirlmere and the Wollondilly Shire over the past week."
Transport Heritage NSW CEO Andrew Moritz said, "It is with a heavy heart we have made the joint decision to postpone the Festival of Steam, particularly given the effort our volunteers and staff have put into preparing this event. We look forward to working with Council to determine a suitable alternative date in the near future."
"Our thoughts are with everyone who has been impacted by the floods and storms across NSW and Queensland at this time."
