A Bulgana resident fears a road through the Ararat Hills Regional Park could become a death trap as the fire season approaches.<\/p>\n
Kris McMillan said Saw Pit Flat Road is used by a number of people to get into Ararat, but in recent years the road has become almost unusable.<\/p>\n
The Ararat Advocate met Ms McMillan on the road this week for an inspection.<\/p>\n
We found the road has been allowed to deteriorate, with numerous potholes and damage from rain.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are people coming in and out of Ararat all the time from Landsborough, Joel South and the road is getting worse and worse,\u201d Ms McMillan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just have to grade it. It isn\u2019t a hard fix,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve damaged seven tyres and one rim on my car. No matter how careful you are, because a lot of the holes are so wide you can\u2019t dodge them and it gets rather expensive,\u201d Ms McMillan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was an accident on the road about three weeks ago. The driver was on the wrong side of the road avoiding pot holes. I also know someone who had to pay a thousand dollars to get his trailer fixed after travelling on the road,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI had the misfortune of being bitten by a white tailed spider and I\u2019ve had to come in to Ararat ever second day to have it dressed. If I don\u2019t come in on this road, I have to go all the way up through Great Western and around or down towards Crowlands and then up the Pyrenees Highway. It (Saw Pit Flat Road) is just a convenient road,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure exactly how many cars use the road each day, but it is used frequently. I would like them (Parks Victoria) to put a counter on the road then they\u2019re not just taking someone\u2019s word for it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ms McMillan has pleaded with Parks Victoria to grade the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease, just grade it, get it into a reasonable order to avoid people damaging vehicles, getting injured and to be able to get trucks in if there is a fire,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Parks Victoria Area Chief Ranger for the Grampians, Rhonda McNeil, said other roads could be used as an alternative.<\/p>\n
\u201cParks Victoria manages more than 2,000 kilometres of road in the Gariwerd, including the section of Saw Pit Flat Road that runs through Ararat Hills Regional Park. We prioritise road maintenance based on frequency of use and access for firefighting,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year we spent $11,000 on maintenance for Warryatkin Road, which serves the same area as Saw Pit Flat Road, is more frequently used and provides a direct route to the highway into Ararat,\u201d Ms McNeil said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Bulgana resident fears a road through the Ararat Hills Regional Park could become a death trap as the fire season approaches. Kris McMillan said Saw Pit Flat Road is used by a number of people to get into Ararat, but in recent years the road has become almost unusable. The Ararat Advocate met Ms […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[31],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/IMG_2772-2.jpg?fit=1280%2C1920&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-6D","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}