A turning lane and road safety were among the concerns raised by members of the Breeza Progress Association (BPA) at Gunnedah Shire Council’s June meeting.
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Held in the Breeza community hall, BPA member Mitchum Neave addressed councillors regarding the issues locals are facing.
Mr Neave told The Namoi Valley Independent the issues raised were not new.
“At the council meeting I brought their attention to the road safety issues that the Breeza community is dealing with,” Mr Neave said.
“The first was a new turning lane. Now I’m not sure if it is a council responsibility, but we feel we need a turning lane along the highway near the crossing because of the amount trains that come through that cause traffic to bank up. Often I’ve seen trucks come passed because they are queued up and squeeze through, then go up to the park and do a U-turn and come back so they are actually on the wrong side of the road waiting for the train to go.
“To us, we just want to see whoever is responsible, whether that’s council, Roads and Maritime Services or the railways, we just want to see someone take responsibility for it because we have been asking for this for nearly 10 years.”
Another major concern raised at the meeting was the need for major road re-surfacing in the village.
“There was some earthworks done to the road to try and stop this issue,” Mr Neave said.
“The earthworks to the road were done by one farmer, Andrew Pursehouse because he got sick of seeing trucks do a detour because of the build up of traffic.”
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Gunnedah Shire Council general manager Eric Groth responded to the concerns at the meeting.
“We certainly understand and appreciate the concerns you are raising and we want to make sure we correctly capture what your concerns are,” Mr Groth said.
“On the third item, I know some of the councillors are aware of this, our infrastructure team are currently working closely with Andrew Pursehouse and others to have that issue solved
“So we are actually awaiting approval from the ARPC at the moment to have that zoned as a temporary access, so that roadworks can be finialised there and everything be done as required. It will only be a temporary access until the other projects are finished, so that process is currently underway at the moment.”
Mr Neave said he hoped to see a result for the community soon.
“I told the councillors at the meeting I would be at the July meeting to hear their progress on these matters,” he said,
“I really hope we get somewhere because as I say, we have been dealing with these problems for a long time and no one wants to see a nasty accident happen, so lets get it done.”
A start date for the works has yet to be set.
Billy Jupp
Billy is a Senior Livestock Journalist for the Queensland Country Life based in Toowoomba. He has worked for a variety of different ACM mastheads during the past five years including the Namoi Valley Independent, Northern Daily Leader and The Land.
Billy is a Senior Livestock Journalist for the Queensland Country Life based in Toowoomba. He has worked for a variety of different ACM mastheads during the past five years including the Namoi Valley Independent, Northern Daily Leader and The Land.
