The KGB – Katoomba Garden Brigade – has spruced up Katoomba Street with extensive plantings.
But their hopes of an improvement at the entrance to town have been dashed by the Roads and Maritime Service.
The median strip on the highway at Yeaman Bridge is a barren, grassless, unkempt eyesore, with just one plant surrounded by dirt and debris.
And the RMS has no plans to change it.
Last November, the mayor, Mark Greenhill, wrote to the roads minister about landscaping in the area.
Praising the four-lane highway as a “state of the art, fit for purpose piece of transport infrastructure”, the mayor continued: “The successful upgrade … should not now be undermined by poor presentation due to insufficient allocation of funds for maintenance regimes.”
But in a response from Kevin Anderson, parliamentary secretary for the portfolio, on February 22, he wrote: “Roads and Maritime has no plans to upgrade and landscape the highway median strip through Leura and Katoomba.
“Roads and Maritime’s maintenance contractor, DM Roads, collects rubbish and sprays weeds on this part of the highway every four months. The last service was done on [sic] November 2017 and the next is due in February 2018.”
President of the Katoomba Chamber of Commerce & Community, Mark Jarvis, was bitterly disappointed at the response.
“It’s pretty poor form,” he said. “Along the highway there it’s the entrance of a major tourist town and it should be looking good. It really should have been addressed by now.”
Mr Jarvis said people often commented on the nice shrubbery on median strips at Wentworth Falls, Bullaburra, Woodford and other areas of the Mountains.
“Why is Katoomba like this,” he asked. “There’s a certain inequity there.”
A spokeswoman for the RMS added in a statement to the Gazette: “Roads and Maritime Services regularly carries out maintenance work as part of its $1.5 billion program to maintain and improve the 18,028 kilometre state road and bridge network.
“This includes maintaining medians to ensure the safety of all road users, with work prioritised on a needs basis.
“Medians along other sections of the Great Western Highway have been upgraded as part of the ongoing Great Western Highway upgrade through the Blue Mountains.”
Ward 1 Cr Kerry Brown said: “It is unacceptable that the entrance to our main tourism town offers a vista of bare earth and weeds. I will be writing to the RMS as a local gardener and member of the community and proposing they work with us. If they’re not going to undertake the work, we will.”
