A RETIRED engineer has labelled a section of Ocean Drive near Bonny Hills a potential death trap.
Graham Bailey, who lives in Canberra but visits the Port Macquarie region frequently because he has family here, says sections of the road were widened about 12 months ago, but the culverts under the road were not extended at the same time.
“What this means is that in reality, you have less than a shoe’s width between the white line and concrete edge of the culvert in places,” Mr Bailey said.
“If someone does veer off the road, they would drop a couple of metres and smash into the concrete.
“They would be lucky to survive; this really is a potential death trap.
“It is very disturbing, because the culverts could easily be extended to avoid it.”
Mr Bailey wrote to Port Macquarie-Hastings Council in November to warn of the dangers, but was told council had limited resources and was not able to attend to all road maintenance works.
“Council prioritises maintenance works based on risk/public safety and unfortunately the attendance to Ocean Drive is not considered an immediate priority,” he was told in a letter.
“An upgrade to provide full-width road shoulders, including culvert extensions, is beyond the scope of operational funds at this stage.”
Mr Bailey wrote back, saying he found the response “alarming”, outlining his misgivings about the road in detail again and asking again why the culverts had not been extended when the roadworks were done.
“Your letter states that ‘full-width road shoulders including culvert extensions’ are not affordable. Does this infer ‘affordable safety’ rather than safety first?” he queried.
Mr Bailey had not received a response to his follow-up letter at the time of going to press.
He said he was taking his quest to the media, concerned about council’s priorities.
“You hear the mayor on the TV asking for applications for grants from his sporting fund when we have basic roadworks like this going on,” he said.
“I think council needs to look at their priorities and put safety first. It shouldn’t take a bad accident before something is done.”
