Mayor wants Mt Field funding

DERWENT Valley Mayor Martyn Evans says the problems encountered accessing Mt Field at the weekend, which left snow-goers delayed in their cars for hours, shows the popular attraction needs far more funding.

A landslip on Lake Dobson Rd on Sunday closed the road until about 12.30pm and left 100 cars waiting to get to the mountain.

Access to the Mt Mawson ski fields via Lake Dobson Rd was closed until early afternoon and Cr Evans said it wasn’t good enough.

“I’d be annoyed if it was me stuck in my car,” he said.

“We need to find a solution to this. It’s not good enough right now.

“We have a place 45 minutes or so out of Hobart where people can go skiing and this sort of stuff turns them away. We’ve had people say they would rather go to Ben Lomond instead because it’s just so much easier to actually get up there and get to the snow.”

A Department of State Growth spokeswoman said road repairs on Lake Dobson Rd because of the slip were expected to be completed tomorrow.

Treasurer Peter Gutwein said what happened on Sunday was “an act of god”.

But Cr Evans said the Government and Parks and Wildlife Service needed to put their money where their mouth is for the south-west region — which he said was Tasmania’s adventure playground.

“I just want equivalent funding,” he said.

“We are something like the third most popular region for tourists, yet we get the sixth most amount of funding through Parks and Wildlife.

“It’s just not equitable.”