South Burnett council has a $4m plans for Wondai Estate

Issues with the road network in the Wondai Industrial Estate are impacting some of the big businesses that operate out of there - but fixing them will not be cheap.

South Burnett Regional councillors debated the upgrade of design plans on Wednesday for the Wondai Industrial Estate Road Network, a project estimated to cost $4.5 million.

At the Infrastructure, Environment and Compliance Standing Committee meeting, councillors discussed the upgrade design plans and cost for Burrows Street, Wondai to be upgraded to accommodate two-way heavy vehicle access and Kemp Street to be left a one-way street.

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The estate leases warehouses to multiple companies, two of which have become the region’s biggest employers.

Among the businesses operating from the estate are Parkside Timber Wondai Dry Mill, Wondai Caravan Sales, Wondai H Hardware, BJC Transport company, and Hy-Tec Concrete and Aggregates Wondai.

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The motion was to bring the report back to a standing committee later in the year.

A council document stated that feedback from the business owners involved was that the one-way access on Burrows Street was the major concern.

“It is causing the problems for vehicles turning into the inspection station and trucks in particular are using it as a two way because of the inconvenience of taking the heavy vehicles right around past Bunya Avenue in the built-up populated area,” a council spokesman said.

Councillor Kirstie Schumacher said her concerns were council spending more money on such an “enormous undertaking”.

“The costs have been enormous and the project includes realigning underground stormwater, power and telecommunications,” Mrs Schumacher said.

“I’m apprehensive about spending more time and money on something we might not move forward with.”

Mayor Brett Otto also expressed concern that new impressions would be costly.

“The unit based costing is already $4.5 million,” Mr Otto said.

Councillor Jane Erkens suggested the trucks remove their B-trailers and make two trips up to the Wondai Inspection Station.

“If trucks couldn’t take double trailers up there, they’d have to unhook the trailers and would cost time and effort, but that would save the whole region carrying a huge expense,” Mrs Erkens said.

Councillor Scott Henschen said there were two companies operating from the area; one of them was the only inspection station in the South Burnett.

“If you have to decouple the trailers somewhere on the highway you would halve the amount of traffic going through there per day,” Mr Henschen said.

“Going through there are massive carriers of peanuts who deliver to our region and up to Bundaberg.

“There’s no easy or cheap fix but in the chemistry; it needs to be a two-way street,” he said.

Councillor Danita Potter said the council could agree there needed to be a resolution.

“I’d like to see that we investigate the matter further as most of the work on the report has already been done,” Mrs Potter said.

The matter will be discussed at the Standing Committee Meeting in November.

The motion for the matter to be adjourned was carried unanimously.

Originally published as South Burnett council has a $4m plans for Wondai Estate