On Melbourne Cup Day, an ACT Public Holiday, and one of the busiest traffic days of the year, Palerang Council decided to close the Kings Highway at Wallace Street, to patch the road at the badly potholed junction of Lascelles Street. There was no public or business notification of the works.
Businesses up and down the street were irate at the loss of trade.
Henry and Lauren Jacob who run the Mobil Service Station were one of the most affected. The business is usually open from 6am to 7pm, but they shut at 9am as vehicles could not reach their business.
"It was a huge loss of business for us" said Henry. "It ran well into the thousands of dollars of trading".
"It should have been done at night or in two sections," said Henry. "There were a lot of options to get it done without upsetting anyone."
"And there were a lot of workers and many vehicles there, but the patch doesn't even cover the whole intersection" said Henry.
Henry also commented that Police and Ambulance have Mobil cards for fuel. Braidwood Police had to drive to Bungendore to fill up.
Palerang's Director of Works Gordon Cunningham confirmed that the works were those of the RTA although they were being undertaken by Council on their behalf through the use of contractors.
Mr Cunningham said "Insofar as the coincidence of the works with the ACT public holiday, this matter was given some consideration as part of the planning stage but was considered to be acceptable given that the worksite was controlled by diversion rather than stop/go, and therefore presented less disruption. The RTA was consulted on this matter and has concurred with Council's decision."
Mr Cunningham added "It is my understanding that the traffic management arrangements in place are functioning well and that traffic controllers are in location at each of the diversion intersections, thus helping to keep both local and through traffic moving."
Mr Cunningham also acknowledged that there should have been notification of the road closure.
Damien Bates from the Criterion Café couldn't even open the doors. The noise and dust from the road works prevented any trading and "the road was closed for almost 100m in three directions. Normally I would have been open from 9am to 5pm" said Bates. "The biggest issue was the prior warning."
Damien Campbell-Davys, Manager of the local IGA Supermarket said there was inadequate signage to blocking off so much of the Lascelles Street and while local trade was still ok on the day, it was the passing trade that they missed out on. "With a public holiday in Canberra many people would usually stop off for supplies before they returned to Canberra."
Linda Eden and Mark Harden of the Braidwood Deli were forced to send staff home early. "We thought there was no way Council would have done this to us" said Linda. "We shut at 3pm. I keep daily records and we were down at least 50% on last year. Was it arrogance, ignorance or apathy not to notify us?"," questioned Eden.
Steve and Donna West from Braidwood Outdoors wondered why it wasn't done differently. "There should have been some prior warning. Canberra is such a huge chunk of our business. Our takings were down at least 50%."
Andrew Dudley, manager of the Braidwood Bakery and Royal Café said "the Café was 'super quiet'. The bakery had extra staff rostered on for the day. It was very disappointing. Country Energy let you know if there's going to be any work done or disruption. Why not Council?" said Dudley.
Another issue was the short signage coming up to the detour. Trucks and cars lurched around the corner into Duncan Street narrowly missing the oncoming queue of cars going back to Canberra as there was little signage before the turn.
Email a friend
Favourites
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Reddit
Newsvine
LinkedIn
Kwoff
Twitter