IN A quiet residential suburb on the outskirts of town, nestled in the Peel River Valley and surrounded by rolling hills, a storm is brewing.
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Families calling the semi-rural Oaklands estate home have taken the fight for road safety into their own hands before it is too late.
A popular bus stop, used twice-daily by young school kids, sits on a narrow and dangerous 100km/h stretch of road.
Parents are so worried the pick-up-point outside the estate, which often leaves primary students standing on the ill-fated road flanked by blind corners, that they tabled a petition to Tamworth Regional Council calling for the bus stop to be relocated.
So dangerous do they deem it that some parents refuse to allow their children to use the bus stop, instead opting to drive them to Nemingha Public School.
Parents are furious that there was no consideration for a bus stop in the planning phase of the development.
Cr Russell Webb is backing calls for the bus stop to be moved to safer grounds under the belief the estate is only going to grow bigger and exacerbate an already dangerous situation.
He tabled the petition from concerned parents at Tuesday’s night’s council meeting and called for quick action.
“We don’t want to get six months down the track and if there was even a minor incident that could have been prevented, then we would not forgive ourselves,” Cr Webb said.
And he’s right.
The NSW Department of Transport will now be lobbied through council’s traffic committee, who meet with local police and the Road and Maritime Service.
Parents should not have to worry about sending their children on the school bus.
They’ve made it clear reducing the speed limit along Nundle Rd past Nemingha is not a viable solution.
But relocating the school bus stop to a quieter stretch within the estate – where trucks and cars don’t frequently travel at 100km/h and blind spots aren’t an issue – is a far more logical answer.
Road safety is drilled into our kids since almost the day they are born, but at the end of the day, kids are going to be kids.
It seems illogical having a bus stop, which services some 10 families, sit on such a busy stretch. We must trust that council’s traffic committee does all in its power to listen to concerned parents – before it is too late.
