At the February 2025 Hilltops Council ordinary meeting a question was taken on notice asking for a list of roads that trucking companies use outside their permits, with a report submitted to Council at the March 2025 ordinary meeting identifying 11 roads that have possibly been accessed without approval or authorisation.
A restricted access vehicle can be assessed on its total length, weight including what it is carrying, total width, total heigh or any combination of those factors.
Most commonly restricted access vehicles include B Doubles, A Doubles, Road Trains, Stock floats (height clearances), cranes, over width, controlled access for buses, Defence Force vehicles, concrete pumps, bucket trucks, truck mounted boring rigs and large over length/width loads such as wind farm components.
According to the report to Council restricted access vehicles need a National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) issued permit or must travel a route that has been assessed and approved for use for that vehicle type.
Council uses traffic counter data and used suitable data collected over the past three years to identify suspected unapproved restricted access vehicle trips on 11 roads:
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- Bribbaree Road
- Frogmore Road
- Grassy Creek Road
- Jugiong Road (South to Futter Park Road)
- Kenyu Road
- Kingsvale Road (Young to Boundary Road)
- Murringo Road
- Murringo Gap Road (Murringo to Chews Lane)
- Old Forbes Road
- Rugby Road
- Rye Park Road
The full report had a breakdown of approved routes and the findings from monitoring with a number of what appeared to be unauthorised movements along the roads above.
"Council will continue to monitor data to identify priority areas for enforcement actions or road upgrades," the report reads.
"Any enforcement action would need to be undertaken by the South East Weight of Loads Group, National Heavy Vehicle Regulator or NSW Police Force."
At the March meeting Cr Flanery asked for an amendment that another report come back.
"Can we have another report come back with a list of outstanding applications for heavy vehicle access, because I think this report's missed the mark," he said.
Cr Flanery went on to say that he thought the original question was asked to find out what heavy vehicle access is being utilised or required throughout the Council.
"I was particularly alarmed when I saw that follow up action will be for enforcement at Council on page 455," he said.
"I think the frustration of heavy vehicle operators is their lack of access, not to be further logged on being on the roads that they may choose to run down in trying to do their jobs.
"I note somewhere else in the report it says agriculture is the main industry of this Hilltops Council so we need to find out what applications are in and what roads we need to look at upgrading or doing improvements on."
Cr James Blackwell questioned if it is in Council's 'capacity' to upgrade the roads and maintain them to the standard they would need to be to sustain the heavy vehicle access.
He also asked 'to what extent should we consider people who may actually want less truck capacity on their road?'
He gave Murringo Gap Road as an example.
"To what extent is this something we can event take action in ownership of feasibly in terms of our budget and our organisational capacity, but also in terms of are we looking at managing roads that actually aren't safe for vehicles and perhaps residents concerns about trucking?"
Director of Infrastructure Duncan McGregor said that it is Council's responsibility.
"As the road authority to ensure that only the vehicles that can safely use a road are using that road," Mr McGregor said.
"So certainly, some of our roads would be cost prohibitive to upgrade to the required standards for restricted access vehicles, but a lot of them also conversely wouldn't.
"The first step is to assess the road comprehensively, and we're actually being included in a program run by Transport for NSW in terms of pre-classifying roads so that less operators have to go through the permit application process to get access.
"However, that's a process that we're very early on, so it'll take time to get into that program fully so that access is streamlined."
The report can be read in the Hilltops Ordinary Council Meeting Agenda 26 March 2025 in section 12.9 on page 451.
Cr Fiona Douglas also asked a question to the director in relation to the Milvale Road truck stop which the Director took on notice and will bring back to Council.
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