A pair of petitions for the Hills were put forward at the Tuesday 24 June Yarra Ranges Council meeting.
A petition for the council to remove reflector poles along Fairhaven Road, Mount Dandenong had eight valid signatures and another petition to request the sealing of Gallemonda Park Road in Menzies Creek, from the Ridge Road entrance into Jackson Hills Road had 34 valid signatures.
Resident Marie Wood also attended the meeting to speak about the second petition and said they wanted to seek to amend it following conversations with residents of Jacksons Hill Road.
“We felt that it was in the best interests of all concerned for us to approach the residents of Jacksons Hill Road and ask them if they were happy to sign a petition, we were lucky enough to get 100 per cent, other than an empty block and one family that were on holidays, 100 per cent happily signed the petition,” she said.
“The council have been extremely helpful but we’ve had some issues on the road during this where our pipes that run underneath the roads that have been graded so heavily with no surface on the roads have actually been broken and had to be replaced,”
“Jacksons Hill Road, even if you put more stone on the road, it all just runs through anyway as soon as it rains heavily.”
According to Ms Wood, after expanding the petition, all residents of Gallemonda Park Road, Jacksons Hill Road and properties leading into them have signed the petition.
Ms Wood said they have experienced three trucks that have been lost on Jacksons Hill Road during their build several years ago.
“We direct everyone to enter via Ridge Road but the Navman directs everyone along Jacksons Hill Road, which is unfortunately a shocking road, the road is like a mound, it has two huge ditches either side,”
“Neighbours are struggling even getting in and out of their driveways and thinking that they may get lost in these ditches, we have had all the neighbours wanting to send through photo,s videos etc of what’s happening on the roads, I felt like it was too much information to begin with and the roads actually speak for themselves anyway.”
Lyster Ward Councillor, whose ward covers the area, spoke to say he was pleased the petition was well supported and that he was taking note of it.
Billanook Ward Councillor Tim Heenan thanked Ms Wood and said in the 17 nearly odd years he’s been at the council, he’s seen a lot of photographs of really bad roads in the whole shire.
“A picture does paint a thousand words so I would say to you or any of your neighbours up there if you are ever in two minds about something that council needs to do, a photograph with written material always does well, sent to the nine councillors to make us all aware,” he said.
“I know that your local ward councillor would be aware of some of the things but the shire is two and a half thousand square kilometres, 55 townships and I know a little bit about around the area but not familiar with those roads,”
“But the way you described it, I can understand about the erosion and when the rains come the road base goes into the culverts and into people’s driveways and in the many years I’ve lived in Mt Evelyn I’ve used chains to pull people out of the ditches before the road was made so it’s not a good thing.”
There was no speaker to the first petition, but Streeton Ward Councillor Jeff Marriott provided some background that it is simply for the removal of some reflective poles placed previously to protect trees and is ‘an easy fix’, while Director of Built Environment and Infrastructure Hjalmar Philipp confirmed the council will commence and investigation and that it is ‘a fairly straightforward matter’.
After a vote, both the first petition and the amended second petition were received.
