Johns River

JRCPA President David Shepard spoke on ABC Mid North Coast Radio this morning with Katya Quigley, on bypassed villages and the condition of village roads. Kempsey Shire GM David Rawlings was also interviewed on bypassed towns and business viability.

From the interview about road conditions, Mr. Shepard stated:

"One of the most important considerations in bypassed towns is the road condition. Our local residents consistently list roads and road conditions in the two main surveys we've done over the last 4 years.

"On this last road duplication project, the bypassed communities of Kew, Johns River and Moorland actually still have to bear the load of Pacific Highway traffic, exiting and entering, coming through our villages.

"We all have traffic barrelling through our towns only to cross back over the highway before leaving the bypasses.

"Yet the RTA has refused to properly classify these main roads as 'regional roads' so our Councils can get the vital ongoing maintenance funding which they desperately need.

"It's a classic example of cost-shifting Katya as David Rawlings the Kempsey GM you just interviewed would know – the outgoing State government has dumped 15 kilometres of roads in our laps – with no ongoing funding.

And again – about 5km of these local roads are STILL being used as part of the Pacific Highway operation.

"The RTA is hardly being fair to the bypassed communities and certainly not fair to the Councils either. The same state government also has rejected Council requests to raise funding on their own through special rate rises to pay for this new infrastructure on their books.

"Our local Independent Member in State Parliament, Peter Besseling has had meetings with Council and the RTA in Sydney in September to help get the much-needed support from the RTA.

"It will be very interesting for us to see what the new Roads Minister, the Hon. Duncan Gay will do to fix this oversight. We've had big promises for funding our roads from Mr. O'Farrell and we really hope this translates to actual dollars, instead of yet more cost-shifting. We can only assume a new state coalition government will be doing things differently."