Sunnyside Road is in a 'perilous' state, councillors agree
The Murray Bridge council will consider upgrading the road at the request of 22 petitioners.
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For decades, the main way into the riverside enclave of Sunnyside has been a zig-zagging dirt track.
Unfortunately, it is also the main way for water to get down the hill when it rains.
Now the Murray Bridge council has been forced to look at upgrading the narrow, winding road after 22 local property owners demanded that something be done.
Roger and Dianne Wickes were the drivers of a petition presented to councillors last week, asking that Sunnyside Road be sealed or – at the very least – modified so that water flowed along one side instead of through the middle.
“What we need is an improved access to our homes that is not destroyed by heavy rainfall and high traffic loads,” the petitioners said.
“Sending a grader to turn the Sunnyside Road surface into dust is not the answer.
“We need a more permanent solution.”
Mr Wickes told Murray Bridge News he and his wife had lived at Sunnyside for more than 20 years, alongside half a dozen families who stayed there year-round and two dozen more who visited for weekends or holidays.
Culverts and other water-steering measures had been added to the road in that time, he said, but they had not done the job – water mostly tended to flow down the hillside, along a ditch and into the River Murray.
The narrowness of the roadway was a problem too.
At their meeting last week, councillors agreed to send staff to assess the road’s condition, along with Burgess Road and Sunnyside Lookout Road.
Cr Wayne Thorley said he had been out to have a look and found it “quite perilous”.
“I’m amazed the residents have not made much more noise about this earlier,” he said.
Mayor Brenton Lewis recalled riding a horse down the same track as a younger man, when it had been in much the same state.
Staff will recommend a course of action to councillors in the coming months.
