O’Brien Contracting applied to council for an extension of the B-Double Route along Showground Road to Suntop Road. Four B-doubles per week are expected to access the property, up to one B-double per day during the peak seasonal period. 

Conditional approval was granted at November’s Ordinary Meeting of Council.

Council administrator Michael Kneipp said: “There is a need to transport stock and crops in B-double vehicles via this route and so a technical assessment was conducted to assess the road for this use”.

“The trial undertaken by council’s traffic engineer determined the roads would be suitable for use by B-doubles as long as there was a travel restriction put in place during school bus times and a reduced speed limit for these vehicles,” he said.

There will be no access along Showground Road, Renshaw McGirr Way or Suntop Road during school bus times between 7am and 9am, as well as 3pm to 5pm.

The trucks will also be required to travel at a 70 kilometre per hour speed limit along the route, outside of the 60 kilometre per hour limit on Suntop Road.

A trial of the B-Double showed that negotiation of the Suntop Road and Renshaw McGirr Way intersection resulted in the truck crossing the centre lines, however council said the area experienced very low traffic volumes and had good sight distance at the intersection to facilitate the vehicle movements.

Council crash data shows there has been seven crashes in Renshaw McGirr Way in the past three years. There are no recorded crashes in Suntop Road within the proposed B-Double Route.

The B-Double route extension involved an on-site investigation, desktop assessment and field trial that considered vehicle tracking, performance through variable road alignments and intersection movements, speed environment, traffic intersection, property access and overall road safety.