Black Mountain residents slam Noosa Council over road conditions

Years since a landslide destroyed access to a Noosa hinterland town, residents are using a dirt road which turns into a “slip and slide” in the wet while still paying full rates.

Black Mountain Rd following the landslide in late February 2022.

Residents of a Noosa hinterland community say they’ve been “neglected” and isolated after a landslide wiped out their main road nearly two years ago.

Black Mountain residents lost access to their main road, Back Mountain Rd, following a landslide in February 2022, leaving them with a long detour using the dirt road, Andersons Rd.

With Noosa Council estimating a timeline of more than 12 months to fix, residents have been left frustrated and isolated with the alternative route lacking basic safety measures.

Tina Sturgeon said Andersons Rd following rain was “like a slip and slide” on what she estimates is more than a 10 per cent gradient.

“It was quite corrugated and I was having trouble with my car rattling across the road and literally bouncing into oncoming traffic,” Ms Sturgeon said.

The Andersons Rd detour is prone to flooding, isolating residents.

Ms Sturgeon said she feared a potentially “catastrophic” crash on the alternative road.

“Even experienced people under those conditions can’t control what is coming the other way, there is a lot of blind corners, if you are slipping and sliding and someone comes around a blind corner there is no reaction time, it is going to be a full head-on crash,” Ms Sturgeon said.

Council acting infrastructure services director Shaun Walsh said repairing Black Mountain Rd was a very demanding and challenging project, adding regular maintenance and inspections of the detour road were carried out by the council.

“In response to recent wet weather, crews installed additional signage on Andersons Rd and have been onsite placing gravel in locations where the surface may be slippery when wet,” Mr Walsh said.

“Several residents also contacted council about Andersons Rd and we continue to provide community updates about construction and maintenance works.”

Weather permitting, the repairs to Black Mountain Rd are expected to be completed in 2025.

Residents forced to use the Andersons rd detour to access Black Mountain say the road is like a "slip and slide".

As the two-year anniversary of the landslide approaches, the council’s actions regarding the road repairs have left Ms Sturgeon feeling forgotten and isolated.

“We have been forgotten, neglected, just basically abused, I’m still paying my full rates, we do not have kerbside bin pick-up so I have to drive my rubbish five kilometres down the road,” Ms Sturgeon said.

“I pay rates for a bitumen road.”

A spokesperson for the Noosa Council said they did not offer discounted rate, however residents of Black Mountain were eligible for flexible payment options.

Black Mountain resident Alex McConnell.

Another resident, Alex McConnell, said the alternative road had caused costly damage to cars, and school buses still struggled to traverse up the road in slippery conditions.

“Use surface material for Black Mountain and Andersons Rds that is suitably engineered so as to make the road safely passable in all weather, providing safe access out and safe access for residents, emergency services, the school bus and delivery vehicles,” Mr McConnell said.

Originally published as Black Mountain residents slam Noosa Council over road conditions