Appeal to mend Piggabeen Road

Geoff Mangan says Piggabeen Road is much worse than Kennedy Drive.

Crystal Spencer

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Poll

Which is a worse road, Kennedy Drive or Piggabeen Road?

This poll ended on 21 May 2010.

Kennedy Drive

33%

Piggabeen Road

66%

This is not a scientific poll. The results reflect only the opinions of those who chose to participate.

KENNEDY Drive has been referred to as “a goat track”, but Tweed resident Geoff Mangan has gone one step further and labelled Piggabeen Road “a minefield”.

Mr Mangan has lived in the Piggabeen Road area for eight years and called the road “atrocious” and “dangerous”.

“The road is made up of potholes and the council comes down on a regular basis to fix it up, but when it rains it just washes away. It’s a perennial problem,” Mr Mangan said.

After comparing driving on the road to a sandblaster under his car, Mr Mangan said he believed it was highly dangerous for Tweed residents to use the road.

“To try and avoid potholes you have to nearly drive on the wrong side of the road, and even then you cannot avoid them,” Mr Mangan said.

“I have contacted the council on numerous occasions about the road but I have received no response.”

Mr Mangan said everybody he had spoken to in the area agreed that the road was in poor condition.

“Different people I have spoken to say it is atrocious,” Mr Mangan said.

The loss of hubcaps and damage to a cars’ wheel alignment are two of the side-effects from driving on the road, he said.

“I have lost several hubcaps from the road; this is a joke and it’s not good for the cars,” he said.

“We have approached the council about this over a long period of time, and the most recent complaint was one month ago.

“It’s the mirror treatment; they just say ‘we’ll look into it’.

“I am just disgusted to think the council only provides a band-aid treatment to the road when major surgery is what’s needed,” Mr Mangan said.

A Tweed Shire Council spokeswoman said the surface of Piggabeen Road between Anconia Avenue and Carramar Drive was scheduled to commence reconstruction in the 2010/2011 financial year, with completion of the works expected in the 2011/2012 financial year.

The works will cost about $1.2 million.

Until its upgrade, maintenance to Piggabeen Road will continue to be carried out commensurate with the funding and resources allocated by council to road maintenance.

Council allocated funding in its 2009/2010 program to complete the construction of the Piggabeen Road bypass, and it is anticipated that it will open in May.

The council said this would result in a significant reduction to traffic volumes on the existing road.