IN their four years living at Smythesdale\u2019s Noble Street, David and Claire McVeigh have had a consistent source of frustration.<\/p>\n
Their property is located off a roughly 500-metre stretch of bending gravel road with the exits onto Browns Road currently marred by corrugation and potholes.<\/p>\n
Ms McVeigh has been asking the municipality for about six weeks to have the road graded, which she said is nothing new.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been asking since we moved in for it to be graded and council have done it a couple times. They probably do it about once a year,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as they do though, you get the motorbikes coming in and people going to the nursery. As soon as it rains it all gets flushed away.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get they\u2019re busy but recently when I called in, they said we weren\u2019t even on the list to be done in the next six months.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wendy Stingers has lived at Noble Street for about a decade, and said the road is falling apart worse than normal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve all been asking for the last six months to have it graded and nothing\u2019s happening which begs the question, why?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the blocks have been built on here, and there\u2019s a lot more traffic than there was, so it\u2019s only going to degrade quicker being the surface it is now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr McVeigh said he\u2019d prefer a more long-term solution.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got like 10 houses up here and a lot of the others have been saying that we\u2019d like to see it asphalted instead,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCouncil brought the black lines in to assess it but that was before the nursery came in, and apparently there wasn\u2019t enough traffic then.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey said at the time, you need 70 cars a day but I don\u2019t reckon any street in Smythesdale except the main road would get that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s 2023 so it seems pretty outdated to still have a gravel road for a populated street like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Golden Plains Shire\u2019s road register lists 716 kilometres of unsealed roads, 15 kilometres of which is at Smythesdale.<\/p>\n
Mayor, Cr Brett Cunningham said their program, which allows for roads to be graded once per year, was suspended to focus on roads impacted by recent rains.<\/p>\n
He also said Noble Street won\u2019t be getting sealed anytime soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this stage there are no plans to convert Noble Street into a paved road following traffic counts undertaken by council which do not warrant sealing of the road,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSealing of an unsealed road is dependent on a range of criteria including location, traffic volumes, crash history, community support, maintenance history and budget availability.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cost of sealing this unsealed road can be between $250,000 to $500,00 depending on a number of factors including if drainage works and kerb and channel are required.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
IN their four years living at Smythesdale\u2019s Noble Street, David and Claire McVeigh have had a consistent source of frustration. Their property is located off a roughly 500-metre stretch of bending gravel road with the exits onto Browns Road currently marred by corrugation and potholes. Ms McVeigh has been asking the municipality for about six […]<\/p>\n