Quamby SS Road peppered with potholes

Depending on where they live - but even just a few hundred metres in - at the crest of a hill - they’re required to zig-zag across the gravel to dodge potholes.

Not just any potholes - these are the sort of potholes you thump into, shudder and thump out of. Potholes, that when you reach them there are few options but to head toward a smaller cluster which might land you in a sneaky point of no return at the end where the largest looms.

Real potholes.

Further up the 5.5 kilometre stretch, the dodging becomes more about easing around deep fissures of water flowing down the road and stretching towards the corrugated shoulders to avoid the greasy muddy innards.

Young Witness managing editor Edwina Mason took a tour of the road last week after fielding calls from the residents - knowing that road could not be worse than her own front drive declared by close neighbours as the worst in the shire (unfortunately not a shire road).

But, alas, the Quamby SS Road experience did result in a near altercation with roadside vegetation as the four wheel drive slid off the road, around 20 photos of rough spots and, later, a call to Young Shire Council’s operations director Dirk Wymer.

Mr Wymer doesn’t have the easiest job in council. He has more weather events, for instance, to contend with.

And forever and a day the talk has been about roads in this shire. Mr Wymer probably doesn’t know that back in the eighties the NSW Farmers Association ran a pothole competition in the shire. A competition so popular it reached the coveted Column 8 in the Sydney Morning Herald.

With around 670 kilometres of gravel roads to maintain in the shire, and starting from what Mr Wymer describes as a very low base, the council has developed and implemented a planned gravel resheeting program from the 2013/14 financial year. 

“This program includes - where possible - lifting gravel roads by earthworks, bringing in material from the roadsides, improving drainage and the shape of the road surface before placing 75mm of gravel on the surface,” he said.

“Under this program council has been able to make substantial improvements to 130 kilometres of the gravel road network; focusing on school bus routes and higher traffic volume gravel roads; up to the end of the 2014/15 financial year.”

But, Mr Wymer explained, with the vast network of gravel roads, there is always a backlog of work, “especially during prolonged periods of wet weather.”

“We expect to get more requests for work on the gravel road network during periods like this and we will manage these requests by inspecting and rating the road to determine priority and scheduling grading maintenance and a thinner layer of gravel where necessary,” he said.

He said that in 2014/15 a total of 1200 metres of Quamby SS Road had, on average, 50mm of gravel laid.

“But the road is 5.5 kilometres long; so there is always more work to do,” he added, “as can be expected, there have been many requests for council to manage in the wet period.”

Mr Wymer said the council was here to provide a service.

“If you are having problems with a road, let us know - we can inspect and rate the road, we can pick them up, go on a tour and look at what can be done - that is our commitment to our customers,” he said.