Residents of Jamieson Street in Wentworth Falls are celebrating their new sealed road after spending years on a dusty, flood-prone street.
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Theirs was one of hundreds of ‘unformed’ roads in the Blue Mountains, dotted lines on maps that were never set to be tarred or maintained by Blue Mountains council, the legacy of historical subdivisions created more than a hundred years ago.
But after intervention from their Ward 2 councillor Romola Hollywood – who negotiated with council officers – and a willingness to cop up a total of $30,000 together in fees for the sealing and drainage job, their street will now be maintained like other ‘formed’ roads in the city.
Cr Hollywood said residents living on unformed roads are required to pay for the road to be sealed, which means it can then be reclassified as a formed road that council maintains.
“It was great to help the Jamieson Street residents work with council to find a solution to what seemed like an intractable historical problem,” she said after the official ribbon cutting across the 200 metres of road on the weekend of May 15.
This was the first application in a decade to change an unformed road to a formed one.
“I am very pleased to have worked with residents living along the southern end to get their road sealed and reclassified.
“This is a great result for the six households who lived along this previously unformed road.”
Cr Hollywood said the residents had been responsible for the ongoing maintenance and expense.
“This was becoming an onerous and costly task as the road was frequently washing away in heavy rain.
“The newly sealed road will make a big difference for residents who now have better access to their homes.”
Wentworth Falls vet, Steve Gibson, who recently moved to the street said “when it rains properties would flood almost”.
“Four people from Sydney chose not to buy our house because of [the unformed road]. They knew it was a liability.”
He said the residents agreed it was “a reasonable amount” to pay to have council take ownership of the road.
From this week, like other ratepayers in the city, he will look forward to his garbage being picked up in front of his home instead of wheeling the bins down the hill, after provision was made during the road construction for a purpose-built turning circle for kerbside waste services.
A council spokeswoman said there were many unformed roads in the Mountains, although they were particularly prevalent in the Upper Mountains where very old subdivisions were drawn on maps with little reference to the topography.
“Very few provide access to houses, and where they do it is usually only one or two. Jamieson was something of an exception in providing access to several houses.”
She said unformed roads were not built by council, but created by developers on private land and not constructed to an acceptable standard if at all.
“Council reclassifies a road very rarely and it is unusual for residents to initiate a road sealing. Residents living on other unformed roads can do the same, by agreement with all property owners on that road.”