Don’t expect any extra level of service from the council on the area’s unsealed road network as a result of a policy’s adoption.
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Port Macquarie-Hastings Council adopted an Unsealed Roads Policy after an extended period of community consultation.
The policy sets out the principles by which the council manages its unsealed roads but does not change the council’s level of service when it comes to the about 450 kilometre network of unsealed roads.
Cr Peter Alley said it was a policy which admitted the council’s helplessness and a policy designed to manage disappointment.
He said it was better to have the policy in place than not have the policy in place.
The council received 35 submissions in response to the then draft policy through its have your say website and 10 submissions through other forums.
A petition from 57 residents requested the council upgrade and seal the roads servicing The Hatch.
Some 29 respondents through the have your say website were either very dissatisfied or dissatisfied with the level of service.
This represented almost 83 per cent of all respondents.
Seventy seven per cent of respondents were unwilling to pay for an increase in the service level.
Ray Griffiths from the Rollands Plains Community Group spoke at the November 21 council meeting about the state of rural roads.
He said the council talked about unsealed roads as gravel roads but many were just dirt.
Mr Griffiths told the council if the crumbling rural road network was not addressed, costs would only increase.
He asked the council to consider changes to the policy or even consider a rural roads policy.
Mayor Peta Pinson said the council was really not offering anything in the Unsealed Roads Policy but it was telling residents living on unsealed roads that the council could not help them and would deliver any improvements at less than a snail’s pace.
The mayor voted against the four-point resolution which included the policy’s adoption.
Cr Pinson said she was there to represent the people in the local government area and many of them lived on unsealed roads.
“My position about the policy is in support of them because they expect better and expect more of council,” she said.
“I can’t support a document like that knowing how the residents feel and knowing the state of some of those roads.”
Cr Sharon Griffiths said there were options to deliver potential improvements to the unsealed road network and she thought that was a positive outcome.
Deputy mayor Lisa Intemann said it was a never-ending battle to provide a decent surface on an unsealed road with no gravel on it.
The council will give consideration in the 2019-2020 budget to funding for gravel resheeting on unsealed roads.
“It’s going to save us money in the long run to get a decent surface on some gravel roads,” Cr Intemann said.
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