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2005 (c) Peninsula Community Access Newspaper Inc

 

Patonga road has potential to kill

 

Since August 3 last year, I have photographed and investigated our roads on the Woy Woy Peninsula paying particular attention to Pearl Beach Dr and surrounds.

The more I look into it the more evidence I find that my council can't be trusted to act in the ratepayers' best interest, unless someone else is paying close attention.

Photos of land slips on Pearl Beach Dr, in an area which had blocked traffic for some hours a few years ago, are indicative of the many concerns raised in our local print media going back to the 1960s.

Each time there is a near miss on the road, which is notorious for rocks (some large ones) and rubble dropping of the unstable mountain road with monotonous regularity.

Pearl Beach and Patonga residents are sick to the back teeth of complaining to Gosford Council about it.

If ignored, this has the capacity to kill someone.

The road was never built to do the job for which it is intended.

The reason then, as now, was a lack of funds.

There is linear cracking in one section of almost 30 metres along both sides of the sewer trench.

This is clear evidence of a slow yet relentless slip down the mountain.

This cracking is evident for hundreds of metres even to a casual observer.

Investigations even in recent times have never covered all of the adversely-affected areas identified.

I am sure ratepayers are sick of the political spit and polish of a visit from an elected rep as they go back to the same sort of procrastination which resulted in the collapse of the two culverts on the old Pacific Highway at Leask and Piles Creeks.

The blocked drain at the bottom of the Mt Ettalong Rd has also been the target of many complaints to council for action for quite some time.

It often forces cars and big trucks onto the wrong side of double lines because of a pond of water which accompanies any piddling downpour.

Is the traffic committee waiting for a head-on crash before insisting the drain be kept cleared?

Like Piles Creek, council works officers drive over and through these man-made obstacles almost every day.

These everyday problems should be addressed as a matter of routine without the need of endless complaints, followed by pleas for money to make existing infrastructure safe.

The investigation into Piles Creek may run to over a million dollars with out counting reasonable compensation.

The repair was quoted in writing by Tynan Engineering at less than $250 thousand.

The fact that Mt Ettalong Rd, Pearl Beach Dr and the road to Patonga have a similar potential to kill cannot be ignored by those who are passing themselves off as responsible government.

Edward James Umina