Six families living on the east-west arm of Hughes Lane in Marrangaroo now have the chance to see improvements to their stretch of road, which requires them to wheel their garbage 500 metres up and down a steep incline, collect post in town and warn off visitors if conditions are particularly bad.
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Ross Haines and Janice Homburg, who moved to Hughes Lane three years ago, are mostly concerned about safety of the residential dirt road. An issue highlighted by an emergency a few years ago.
“The main problem is if we need an ambulance up here and if it’s been raining it won’t come up, or otherwise, like last time, I had to go down and show them the way with the four-wheel drive,” Mr Haines said.
“I had a very bumpy ride down in an ambulance two years ago,” Janice Homburg said.
They say the dirt road, which was a Crown road, has been a problem area for a decade with residents conducting their own maintenance work on the stretch, particularly after rainfall when deep trenches have a tendency to appear on the thoroughfare.
Mr Haines said the road hadn’t been graded since he moved in.
“Our biggest problem was that it would have to be transferred from Crown Land to Lithgow Council,” Mr Haines said.
Jonathon Edgecombe, the acting director of council’s infrastructure services, said council has now received official notification that the road had been transferred to its ownership, but this was only received after councillors voted in June to re-allocate $200,000 set aside to fix Hughes Lane as part of the 2018/19 Operational Plan.
Lithgow councillors chose to re-allocate the funding on advice of council staff to go towards improvements to the Wallerawang Overbridge [also known as Black Bridge] as Hughes Lane was not yet a council asset.
While council has sought the ownership of over 100 Crown roads, Mr Edgecombe said council did not actively pursue the ownership of Hughes Lane because of its maintenance requirements and limited usage.
“At this stage, Hughes Lane remains a Crown road. The community have made formal requests to the Department of Lands for its transfer and Council has maintained its view that the maintenance of the asset would be an unreasonable expectation of council,” a council report stated in May.
“This asset was put into the budget as a precaution.”
Mr Edgecombe said that now the road was within council’s responsibilities ‘significant’ works would be required, which could not be budgeted for until 2019/20.
“A small scale bulldozer would have to be brought into the area, to flatten the road itself, and when it’s reasonably trafficable new material would be brought in to bring it to the standard expected by the community. That’s going to take significant work,” he said.
Mr Edgecombe said that due to the council resolution to give priority to the road ‘via grants’ there was a possibility that works on the road could commence before the 2019/20 financial year.
“Staff are obligated to complete actions resolved in council and we always seek grants to offset the cost of maintaining road assets, particularly in this instance where there is an amount of work to be done in that area.”
Mr Edgecombe said council roads had to be maintained to a standard that is accessible to services. Good news for the Hughes Lane couple.
“All of councils roads are designed to a standard where service vehicles can access it. That includes garbage trucks, ambulances, and fire engines,” Mr Edgecombe said.
Hughes Lane was the only road forcibly transferred to council ownership in July by the Department of Lands.
Council has proactively sought the transfer of 113 Crown roads to council ownership where they have identified significant community need. So far 22 of those roads have been formally transferred.
“Those we pursued of our own accord, they’re mostly in Wallerawang and Portland,” Mr Edgecombe said.
