General News
15 December, 2023
Shire to ditch dust suppression trials
DUST suppression on gravel roads across the Corangamite Shire continues to be a bugbear for both council and residents.
At the November Ordinary Meeting of Council councillors voted to approve a new Dust Suppression policy which provides council with the guidelines for assessing requests for dust suppression.
Shire manager assets planning John Kelly said the shire’s local road network comprised of 1458 kilometres of unsealed roads.
“Every year during drier months dust is generated from gravel roads due to the traffic movements and strong wind conditions which results in numerous complaints and requests of suppression of the dust from residents abutting these gravel roads,” he said in the report to council.
“Various products have been trialled by council for dust suppression over many years with limited success.
“No dust suppression product was able to provide a long lasting sustainable solution. It is considered that bituminous sealing of a section of gravel road provides a permanent solution to control dust.”
Mr Kelly said the policy would no longer provide the reactive dust suppressant treatemnts on its unsealed roads adjacent to residences.
“However, it is proposed that council consider sealing sections of the roads in front of properties on a cost recovery basis from the property owners,” he said.
In the vicinity of a household a minimum length of 150 metres of gravel rural road would likely need to be sealed.
Mr Kelly said the estimated cost of this treatment would be approximately $10,000 per households.
“For requests where it can be demonstrated the majority of traffic on the road is through-traffic and that there is greater than 50 vehicles per day travelling on the road, the costs of the sealing works would be equally shared between the owner and council,” he said.
“Council’s contribution would be drawn from the current budget allocation for dust suppression.
“For all other requests on roads that do not meet the above traffic criteria, full recovery costs would be sought from owners.”
Councillor Jo Beard said the trials over the last few years had been “pretty thorough”.
“There was a lot of backlash at times; but we’ve obviously tired to do everything we could to appease particularly the residential landowners on those dirt roads,” she said.
“I do appreciate the expertise that has gone into bringing this particular policy to the table.
“I think it’s going to be interesting to see it rolled out.”
Cr Beard said council needed to come up with some sort of solution to the problem.
Cr Ruth Gstrein agreed and said it was important to make sure the policy was “fair and equitable”.
“We really need to stop throwing good money after bad and get a permanent solution,” she said.
“I think this is a good solution.”