Priorities paused for gravel grade calendar

GOLDEN Plains Shire’s gravel road grading program was suspended late last year following rains that impacted roads throughout the region.

The schedule, which was established in 2019 and allows each unsealed road on the municipality’s register to be graded once a year, was held up for about two months between October until recently.

A spokesperson said the impact from the rains was severe enough to divert their resources.

“Many roads, bridges and culverts were damaged, and council received over 900 requests for repairs due to flood damage,” they said.

“Road grading resources including graders, trucks, rollers and council staff were diverted to priority repairs of flood damaged roads.

“The grading program recommenced in late December with works continuing throughout 2023.”

With gravel road grading annually scheduled for between April to October, Cr Les Rowe said the graders would “need to go hammer and tong” to catch up to the rain-impacted network.

“I don’t know if they’ll be able to catch up to how it was before all the rain and flooding events. So much damage has been done to a lot of these roads,” he said.

“A lot of the drainage has been identified as a big part of the issue. The shoulders of the road, for example, haven’t been graded off into the drain.

“They’ve cut short and only graded to the edge of the gravel, and that basically causes a little mini-river down the side of the road which is where all the washouts have been.

“If the edge of the gravel road had been graded back into the table drain those issues wouldn’t have happened.”

More than 700 kilometres is listed in the municipality’s unsealed road registry, and with four graders each assigned to one quadrant of the region, Cr Rowe said the pressure might be on them to catch up.

“I’d like to see the graders working longer hours to really utilise the moisture in the road because we only get to grade during the colder months,” he said.

“There’s only four in the system and I don’t see any other way they’re going to get back on track.

Despite the charter’s schedule of one grade per year, Cr Rowe said some gravel roads would definitely be a higher priority than others.

“Some of the busier roads here might actually get graded three or four times a year. I know Mcphillips Road in Bannockburn, for example, is always a major concern and gets heap of traffic,” he said.

“I don’t know how it’s prioritised but if you’re on a road with plenty of traffic, you’ll get more things done.

“If you’re one household on a country road, you’d virtually get nothing because it’s the one household and they go where the demand is.

“It’s only logical for those heavier-used gravel roads to get more maintenance.”