Road grading timeline open for all

THE schedule for Golden Plains Shire’s annual gravel road grading program has been made public on the municipality’s online events calendar.

The online accessibility will allow people to see when unsealed or gravel roads throughout the region are set to be smoothed out and maintained.

Golden Plains Shire mayor Cr Brett Cunningham said the calendar is aimed at keeping residents up to date on when their road will be worked on.

“The aim of the grading schedule is to answer one of the most common questions councillors and our customer experience team hear ‘when will our road be graded?’,” he said.

“Having that information available on council’s events calendar helps provide our residents with that answer and assurance of when each road will be graded.

“Council acknowledges that ongoing road maintenance is one of the most important issues in Golden Plains Shire.

“We want to take every opportunity to keep people informed on road maintenance activities across the shire.”

With a network of more than 700 kilometres of unsealed roads throughout the region, the municipality’s grading program is aimed at ensuring each road is maintained at least once per year.

The program was halted late last year with efforts diverted to assist with roads damaged by the spring floods, and recommenced in late December.

Separate events pages are accessible for each town, with listings highlighting which road the grading is set to take place on and on what day.

The calendar indicates grading is currently scheduled to occur around the region’s north-west at places like Dereel, Smythesdale, Smythes Creek, Corindhap, and Linton.

A public calendar for the municipality’s grading schedule was initially promised for August 2019 following council’s adoption of their unsealed roads charter in July, and was previously made available in May 2020 for the 2020/21 program.