Rough rural road soon to be repaired

CREWS are set to commence repairs to flood-damaged areas of Elmore-Raywood Road next month according to a statement from the Department of Transport.

Six kilometres of road surface that were impacted by last spring’s flooding will be completely rebuilt as part of the works between Elmore-Mitiamo and Nesbitt roads.

“We’re rebuilding two sections of Elmore-Raywood Road, which were damaged in the floods, as part of $4.8 million investment along the road from the Victorian Government,” spokesperson for the department said.

“Our crews are busy delivering a huge program of repairs right across the region, rebuilding, repairing, and resurfacing our most badly flood-damaged roads.”

Ashleigh Robinson lives in Huntley and keeps her horse in Sebastian.

A few weeks ago, she was heading to Mansfield along the road and had to slow right down to 10kph due to its poor condition.

“Aside from that road, it’s the easier route to get that way with a horse-weight on,” said Ms Robinson.

“In Raywood on the main street you get caravans, trucks, so it is a very heavily used road from B-double trucks to cars with caravans on, and they’re not little caravans.

“Quite a common route for a lot of horse floats too.”

Ms Robinson said the road’s condition was worst on the single-lane, Elmore side.

Originally the speed limit was 100kph and was reduced to 80kph by last November when she last used the road. This time around it had been reduced again, to 40kph.

“But with a horse float on we sat on 20 as our max, just because there’s no way around it. You hit the hole, you hit the hole,” Ms Robinson said,

“It wasn’t falling apart like that before, you’d at least be able to sit in the middle of the road to dodge the potholes, but this time we slowed down to 10kph because you have to take it carefully when there’s a horse on-board.

“They were big holes, so when we got to Elmore, we stopped and checked all the wheels and checked the horse and made sure gear hadn’t moved around, which it had.”

“I know a lot of people say there’s a lot more traffic on the roads in town, but they’re mainly your car traffic, whereas your rural roads get a lot more heavy traffic.

“Your car-caravans, your truck with trailers, during harvest season they even have road trains.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if even the truck drivers are starting to get frustrated.”

In addition to the major repairs to Elmore-Raywood Road, smaller patches will be fixed on other areas of the road.