Why poor rural roads hurt Gympie, Burnett, Bundaberg business

Badly maintained regional roads can add a big cost to businesses, with the owners of several regional transport companies revealing the shocking hidden impact of the Wide Bay and Burnett’s most poorly maintained stretches. Watch the video:

Transport company owner Michelle Barry has unloaded on the state of rural roads across Gympie, labelling them “disgusting” and saying they are costing businesses big money.

The owner of Followmont Transport Gympie said her fleet of seven trucks were regularly being repaired as a result of the beating they took on the region’s roads.

Ms Barry’s revelations of the ongoing damage caused by the roads come as News Corps’ mastheads across the Wide Bay Burnett campaign for the region’s roads to be fixed now.

“Businesses are wasting money on constant repairs, tyre replacements, wages on staff standing on the side of the road, while they‘re waiting for tyres to get changed,” Ms Barry said.

“It’s expenses we cannot recoup.”

Curra Estate Rd, Tin Can Bay Rd, and Pengelly’s Bridge were among the biggest trouble spots in the Gympie region, she said.

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The Curra stretch was not likely to improve anytime soon given that the large volume of traffic it was serving now was only going to get worse as more housing estates opened up in the area.

Ms Barry said it was not uncommon for close calls with vehicles coming the other way who were on the wrong side of the road trying to avoid hitting potholes.

News Corps’ mastheads across the Wide Bay Burnett, including The Gympie Times, the Fraser Coast Chronicle, the Bundaberg NewsMail, the South Burnett Times, and the Central and North Burnett Times, are campaigning for regional roads to be improved.

Repeated attempts to patch the roads rather than repair them thoroughly were causing more problems, she said.

Polleys Coaches owner and Gympie councillor Warren Polley said the cost of running his buses in the Wide Bay’s west, including the Burnett and especially around Gayndah, was about 50 per cent higher than in Gympie owing to the state of roads in the area.

Where the cost of running a bus around the Gympie region was about 85c-$1.05 per kilometre, Mr Polley said, it rose to about $1.50 per kilometre as a result of “unnecessary repairs” further west.

“It’s significant,” Mr Polley said.

“It does add to the longevity of vehicles.”

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Some of those roads around Gayndah were causing serious damage; one bus had sustained three broken side windows and one broken windscreen from rocks being flung up, he said.

Polley’s Coaches owner Warren Polley said the buses he operates in the Wide Bay Burnett’s west, including around Gayndah, cost about 50 per cent more to run compared to those which do the rounds on Gympie’s roads.

“My buses are getting hammered,” Mr Polley said.

Potholes were not the only problem.

Mr Polley pointed to McIntosh Creek Rd, which runs from Jones Hill to the beginnings of the Mary Valley, as an example of a road too narrow for the traffic it must now accommodate.

The region’s continued population growth made it, and roads like it, “no longer fit for purpose”.

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As a councillor, he said there was a second piece to the argument which needed consideration outside a long touted cry for more cash: who would carry out the work?

Business owners Michelle Barry and Rodney Payne each said the Curra Estate Rd was in poor condition and in desperate need of maintenance. The road was the scene of a fatal crash in January, 2023 which claimed the lives of a 44-year-old Maryborough woman and a 52-year-old Gympie man.

“We don’t have the (staff) capacity to do it,” Mr Polley said.

“Even if we throw another $100m (at the problem), who is going to do it?”

Stolzenberg Water Carrier owner Rodney Payne shared Mr Polley’s concerns about road infrastructure not keeping pace with the region’s growth.

The congestion, caused by constant roadworks and more cares, had impacted his business in another way.

“We can’t do the loads we used to do 20 years ago,” Mr Payne said

He raised the same concerns as Ms Barry when it came to how the region’s roads were being fixed.

“They’ve got to stop patching everything and do it properly,” Mr Payne said.

Originally published as Why poor rural roads hurt Gympie, Burnett, Bundaberg business