Kywong-Howlong Road would be upgraded from next year under Greater Hume Council’s draft 2019 delivery plan, revised last night following an emotional plea by Councillor Annette Schilg.
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The original schedule had works to a 10.6-kilometre section of Jingellic Road through Wantagong Valley Flats coming before a four-kilometre stretch of Kywong-Howlong Road, heading south towards Burrumbuttock Creek.
But Cr Schilg successfully moved a motion to switch the order of the upgrades.
“I don’t think we can afford to wait another seven years for four kilometres of road to be altered – there are many near misses we don’t hear about,” she said.
“We’ve done lots of road counts I’ve asked for … in July 2017 it was 340 (daily traffic movements) and 17 per cent were heavy vehicles – and that wasn’t in peak times.
“Bring forward the four-kilometre stretch of road, it would be done over two years, and be seen as proactive in the eastern part of the shire, and not wait another seven years to start it.”
Speakers at the public forum also spoke of the need, with the Barnawartha Logic Centre and saleyards growth to increase traffic along the road a concern.
Cr Denise Osborne said it had been “an extremely difficult issue” in council workshops and that the difference was one vote in sticking with the original program that put Jingellic Road first.
“That was after the roads tour … it took the horrible information into account that Jingellic Road has already cost lives,” she said.
“That does not in anyway take away form the possibility of the same thing happening on Kywong-Howlong Road … but the pure fact is we can’t do both.”
Asked by Cr Doug Meyer if council could borrow money to do both projects at the same time, general manager Steven Pinnuck said the minimum to borrow was $1 million, with Kywong-Howlong Road exceeding that by $600,000, but the repayment would cost council.
“We would be borrowing it over 10 years with interest prevailing from the Treasury at the time – last time it was 3.4 per cent,” he said.
“If that’s what we’ve got to include in repayment of that debt, within the current budget there isn’t capacity to do that, unless we chop something else out.”
The draft 2017/2021 Delivery Program and draft 2018/2019 Operational Plan will be put out for public comment for 28 days from April 26. The final budget will not be decided until June.