Since the days when Stuart St Clair was the federal member, there have been fighting words and angry ones at that over the roadway surface between the Calala Ln turnoff and Craigends Ln in the Longyard area in South Tamworth.

Councils and politicians have been lobbied for the road to be upgraded in that stretch of the highway and themselves have tried, but the latest push might just end in a long-awaited upgrade for what’s been a bit of a dog’s breakfast of a road.

Tamworth Regional Council has revealed it is undertaking a new design investigation at its own expense, in a move which could pave some improvements for traffic flow.

Regional services director Peter Resch said the initial design was being based on widening the highway to two lanes each way through that stretch of road.

One bloke who’s optimistic something might just get done is long-time lobbyist and serial critic Allan Lisle, who’s lived on the road there for nearly 30 years and who reckons the sorry tale goes even further back, to the days of MP Ian Sinclair.

“This is undoubtedly a story of shame,” Mr Lisle says, and not just melodramatically.

“It’s a visual shame. It’s a shame of potential life danger. Political shame. All tiers of government shame.

“It’s a blot on Tamworth.”

Mr Lisle admits he’s become a public nuisance over the road and a rusted-on, crusty critic to boot – but he knows his stuff. He’s lived opposite the roads depot since about 1988.

He argues it is simply a safety issue – and not just for normal traffic.

He feels sympathy too for RMS workers – previously the RTA, and before them, the DMR depot blokes – who have had to turn trucks and heavy machinery in there as traffic banks up all around them.

“For the volume of traffic there, it’s certainly not up to safety standards,” he says.

“The dust and the dirt shoulders, there are skid marks in loose gravel frequently. Absolutely it’s a daily thing.

“It’s highly dangerous, especially to get across the road and get a gap in the traffic.”

He claims it’s been a political football, and, despite numerous traffic counters organised by previous local politicians, with results that apparently reveal some 30,000 vehicles along that stretch of road every day, nothing’s been done. At all.

It remains, he says, a bush track that is our shame and an indictment.

“And there’s a very small section, actually, on the road’s shoulder, about a house-block-and-a-quarter long, that hardly ever gets mowed and with a signpost in it as well,” he said.

“You can’t miss it. It is right in front of the RMS depot. And its width is less than a council mower. Now, that’s significant as a symbol of the attitude towards us ... because it shows directly the disregard for this section of road.

“It’s been surveyed more times than it’s been mown.”

Mr Lisle claims the road was originally widened and upgraded during the time of Ian Sinclair – at least as far as the Calala turnoff – but further funding was diverted to another Nationals/Country Party seat along the Pacific Highway to shore up votes – and an allocation to do the rest of the highway in that area was lost.

Over the years, it’s become a traffic snarl – especially when there are major events on at the equine centre or entertainment centre – and, increasingly, with the commercial and residential expansion that has gone on in the Longyard and Kingswood areas.

But TRC regional services director Peter Resch said a preliminary design was under way that might help solve the bottleneck problems in the Calala to Craigends lanes stretch and they would be pushing hard to get some funding from RMS for the work. The council said traffic flow had significantly increased over the past couple of years.

“We talk to the RMS regularly and that area has been part of those discussions,” Mr Resch said.

“We know the culvert is wide enough to have an additional lane on both sides, particularly for the northbound lane, but we will be doing a design that incorporates two lanes each way.”