Letter: For the Umpteenth Time

Letter to the Editor from Sue Abbott

I have lived in Scone for 33 years and ever since I first arrived in August 1983 there has been talk of a bypass.

Notwithstanding vested bypass interests, the coal boom is over, and infrastructure that may have been deemed necessary once upon a ‘coal’ time is obviously not needed now.

If we have managed to get through the coal boom without a bypass or an overpass to date from here on in we are hardly going to need the road developments estimated to facilitate projected vehicle increases.

In case you did not get the memo … the coal industry has nose-dived.

I wrote two pieces for my Scone Blog almost three years ago, and I’m submitting them both now as my feedback concerning the New England Highway.

We have suffered enough at the hands of the Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) after they foolishly removed our round-about and inserted traffic lights as the round-a-bout’s replacement.

Again this gold-plating of road infrastructure was done with unfounded projections of our highway needs apparently underpinned by a mining boom that many of us knew was never going to last.

As a result of the irresponsible decision to manipulate our high street, we lost valuable car-parking space, and traffic speed increased exponentially with that hard-wired desire that compels motorists to make green lights from wherever they observe them.

I am surprised that I need to say this to people who work for the RMS and I do not … yet everyone else around the world appreciates that round-a-bouts are traffic calming and traffic lights are not.

The RMS failed us with the round-about v traffic lights debacle so as far as I am concerned there is no reason to trust the RMS now with this latest New England Highway development proposal which if they have your way will plague our town for decades to come.

“Why should we trust the RMS or the Upper Hunter Shire Council now?”