RMS Has A Need For Speed

LAST night local business owners gathered with Council to discuss concerns with the Roads and Maritime Services bypass designs.

The main issues identified with the plan were underpinned by the RMS’s priority to have traffic on the bypass travel at 100 kilometres an hour.

The RMS’s speed imperative prevents a range of design options, most importantly it restricts how vehicles can access the bypass.

The RMS have also asserted that local businesses are only partially dependent on drive through trade and will therefore have “no impacts” by the bypass, yet they have no statistics on the town to substantiate their claim.

President of the Scone Chamber of Commerce, Ben Wyndham, said the bypass had the potential to deliver great things or terrible things.

“This is important for local businesses, this could be a exciting opportunity or a terrible one and it is something we will have with us for the next 50 or 80 years,” Mr Wyndham said.

The local Chamber members discussed producing an action plan for local business owners to highlight their main concerns to the RMS.

Many business owners questioned if the RMS were genuine about addressing their concerns.

Their track record with Council has been they do not listen but the Mayor encouraged local business owners to make sure they voiced their concerns now.

“If the community wants to be heard, you need to do it now,” said Mayor Bedggood.

“There have been some great comments here tonight and although Council has tabled all of them with the RMS previously and they have been ignored, this is our last chance to get this right for our town, we won’t get a second chance at this,” he said.

“Please don’t be defeatist, keep asking for what you need,” Wayne Bedggood said.

The main issues the attendees wanted addressed included:

• full traffic movement at the northern and southern approaches of the bypass;
• the in-town bridge could be traded for better approaches if the issue was cost and
• the plans should synchronise with the Council’s proposal for a road at the northern approach to connect with the stockyard and meat works.

Steve Guihot, owner of Paddock to Pantry said it was a double standard to insist on a 100 kilometre limit for the Scone bypass, when there was plenty of evidence of speed being reduced in other areas of the Hunter.

“They have just slowed the intersection at the Golden Highway and New England Highway to 80 kilometres for safety and look at Aberdeen, it has been slowed to 50 over the bridge, so why can’t we have 80 or 90 here so that we can have safer and better access to the bypass?” he questioned.

Others questioned the safety of the t-intersection on St Aubin’s street if traffic is travelling at 100 kilometres.

If vehicles want to turn back into the town from the northern bypass, they will need to turn right into Makaybe Diva Drive, do a u-turn and drive back.

No Impact On Business

Owners of Scone McDonald’s Yela and Phil Wilson were shocked at the RMS assertion that local businesses were only partially reliant on passing trade.

“Our ratio of passing trade to local trade would be approximately 60/40, so how they can say no impact is ridiculous,” said Mr Wilson.

“With the right connectivity it could work, but the current situation is disastrous for us and the service station next to us,” he said.

“I’m concerned the RMS is just going to railroad people anyway,” he said.

“As a community we need to mobilise, because we need to get this right,” Phil Wilson said.

The Council suggested local businesses conduct surveys of customers to gather data on the percentage of their business that was local or passing trade.

The RMS will be holding two consultation sessions in Scone on February 4 and 5 with the deadline for submissions February 19.