Council safety project gets award

LISMORE City Council's award-winning road safety project 'Drive to Conditions' collected its second award last night.

LISMORE City Council's award-winning road safety project 'Drive to Conditions' collected its second award last night when it took out the Local Government Excellence in Road Safety Category in the 2012 IPWEA Engineering Excellence Awards at a ceremony in Coffs Harbour.

In mid-April the project won the Excellence in Road Safety Category in the 2012 National Awards for Local Government and as a result is now also in consideration for the overall 2012 National Award for Excellence in Local Government which will be announced in June.

Council's Road Safety Officer, Lisa Marshall, said to be recognised a second time for the road safety project, developed in-house by Lismore City Council, was very satisfying.

"This award is once again great recognition for the team of staff who worked hard to develop and implement the project," Ms Marshall said.

"In developing 'Drive to Conditions' we were looking for a way to respond to the situation where there had been a high number of crashes occurring in our local area, and also where members of the community and the police were regularly giving us feedback that many people simply were not driving to conditions.

"So we considered the Safe Systems model outlined in the National Road Safety Strategy 2011-2020 that focuses on 'Safe People, Safe Speed, Safe Roads & Roadsides and Safe Vehicles' and then developed this project, which includes an extensive media campaign, community surveys, speed surveys, crash analysis, enforcement activity, and by carrying out maintenance and safety improvements to road and roadside infrastructure."

Council's Executive Director Infrastructure Service, Garry Hemsworth, said he was delighted with his team's achievements.

"We have had consistent industry feedback that the project is leading edge in the field of road safety as a result of its holistic approach using the safe systems principles outlined in the National Road Safety Strategy," Mr Hemsworth said.

"The team that developed this project cares a lot about this local community and is consistently delivering great results for Council and for Lismore and I certainly congratulate them on the win."

The project is still in the running for the overall 2012 National Award for Excellence in Local Government which will be announced at an awards presentation to be held in Canberra in late June.

Originally published as Council safety project gets award