Road fix will take year
Surf Coast Shire can’t afford $1m works for Gnarwarre Road
A SURF Coast Shire road in desperate need of major work will sit idle for almost a year as the council admits it doesn’t have the funds to fix it.
Gnarwarre Rd provides a key link for the local CFA Fire Brigade to access any emergency around the Winchelsea and western area.
Property owners were sent letters from the shire about the declining state of the road in September 2017, with a section beginning to sink due to a collapsed culvert 13m below the asphalt.
The letter states that remedial works will not be undertaken until “at least June 2018”.
The road has been closed to everyone but local traffic and the speed limit in the affected section has been dropped from 100km/h to 60km/h.
Surf Coast Shire general manager governance and infrastructure Anne Howard said the cost of fixing the culvert was estimated at $1 million.
“Given the cost and scale of the works, this project cannot be absorbed into council’s current year works budget and is therefore proposed to be included in council’s 2018-2019 Budget,” she said.
“The speed restrictions are in place to help manage the risk associated with the culvert and allow for the continued use of the road.”
Frustrated Gnarwarre CFA volunteer and local Tony Russell said he had warned the council more than 15 years ago that the culvert needed to be fixed before it was a major problem.
“I took a bloke from the shire down there and said ‘this is going to be trouble if you don’t get on to it now, this whole rusty culvert is going to collapse’,” he said.
“I said ‘why don’t you fix it now before it collapses’, and nothing got done.
“Well, it’s collapsed, and now they’re talking a mega job.”
Mr Russell said the work needed to fix the road would mean that any CFA trucks would have about 15km added to their journey to fight blazes west of the station.
“If we get a fire here (Winchelsea area), it’s going to be quicker for them to ring up the Inverleigh CFA and get them to come over to fight a fire right here on our doorstep,” he said.