$2.5M grant settles dust-up on Simons Lane

HOW far $2.5 million ultimately goes in upgrading Simons Lane, Leongatha is anyone’s guess, but the work cannot come soon enough for local residents who have taken to driving on the grass verge rather than endure the corrugations and the dust.

On an ordinary sort of a day last Friday, trucks from a nearby quarry crawled along the road to keep dust to a minimum. An online package delivery van, its driver no doubt working to an impossible timetable, sent the dust billowing out the back as he clipped the tops of the corrugations at speed.

Locals drove more conservatively. A school bus on the home run did the same, its driver Glenn Bainbridge gets to see the trouble morning and night.

“It’s actually quite a busy road, close to Leongatha, with development coming this way but it’s in a shocking state,” Mr Bainbridge said.

“I can understand the shire’s situation. Grading the road doesn’t last long and the corrugations soon reappear but the dust is always there, it’s terrible. I really feel for the local residents, especially those on tank water.”

Scott Cameron, a resident of Simons Lane, down the Bass Highway end, is one of those on tank water and he recently put in a swimming pool as well. However, while the dust is a problem, he’s got a more serious issue, playing Russian Roulette whenever he has to turn right, below the crest of a hill, at the Simons Lane-Bass Highway intersection.

“I usually try to avoid it all together and go the other way. It’s safer,” said Scott last week.

“The locals have done petitions and all that, but I have heard a report they’ve found some serious money to fix the road.”

He’s right.

At the February 16 meeting of the council, the South Gippsland Shire Council committed to spending $2.5 million sealing the entire length of the road, from where the bitumen finishes now, down the hill past the Jehovahs Witnesses’ Kingdom Hall, past the rail trail, past Scott Cameron’s house and all the way through to the Bass Highway.

But, what’s equally important, according to Cr John Schelling, who together with his colleagues Cr Clare Williams and Cr Adrian Darakai, has taken a keen interest in the fate of Simons Lane, the dangerous Bass Highway intersection will be completely eliminated.

“They’ve still got a few issues to finalise but that’s as I understand it. The $2.5 million will seal the whole length of the road and they’ll create a new intersection, away from that dangerous crest on the highway, down on the flat,” Cr Schelling said this week.

According to Cr Schelling, Simons Lane will effectively veer right towards Leongatha, at the Inverloch road end, before the existing intersection, and an entirely new turn will be created in a safer place on the highway.

He expects that all of that work will be able to be completed within the $2.5 million so far committed by the shire.

Whether or not Vicroads will contribute to the cost of a new, safer intersection is not known.

The Council made the decision to allocated $2.5 million to Simons Lane when considering how to spend a $4,769,062 grant from the Australian Government’s Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Fund.

Amongst other projects, the Council decided to allocate $1,019,062 of that money to Simons Lane, together with $1,480,938 of its own, to make up the $2.5 million cost.

And the good news for bus driver Glenn Bainbridge and local residents including Scott Cameron is that construction of approved projects must be completed by June 30, 2023 as a condition of the funding.