For years the residents of the Mounts – Mts Wilson and Irvine in the northernmost part of the Blue Mountains council area – have felt somewhat trapped.
Their only road in and out has been Mt Wilson Road, off Bells Line of Road near the Mt Victoria end of the line.
The alternative route – Mt Irvine/Bowens Creek Road, which connects the villages with Bells Line near Bilpin in the east – had been left to deteriorate and was no longer passable.
If the main road was blocked by fire or fallen trees, they were effectively prisoners in their own community.
But there’s now room for cautious optimism.
On the Blue Mountains side, council has addressed overgrown vegetation and drainage issues, making it more easily accessible down to the creek which forms the boundary with Hawkesbury Council.
And on the Hawkesbury side, a $100,000 grant from the federal government announced in April to investigate and design a 4WD emergency access route should see great leaps forward in work on the other side.
Last month, Mt Wilson/Mt Irvine RFB executive member Elizabeth Montano addressed the Hawkesbury Council meeting considering the grant. She knew she had caught councillors’ attention when she pointed out that fires don’t stop at council boundaries and could quite easily move from the Mountains into Hawkesbury territory.
“I said, ‘do you realise how close we are as the crow flies and as fire moves?’ They sat up when I pointed out that local government boundaries are irrevelant in emergencies,” she said.
Hawkesbury Council subsequently passed a resolution to seek a more detailed briefing on the issue, including how council intends to use the funding, the involvement of the local RFS in the study and how to maintain the road into the future. .
The ever-practical Mounts residents are hoping for a “Holden upgrade, not a Rolls Royce solution”, Ms Montano said.
“As an example, if putting in a ford to cross Bowens Creek is more economical than restoring the old bridge or building a new bridge, then that would be the preferred option. And, in addressing the washaways on the Hawkesbury side, if the route can be restored and stabilised using cutting and cliff retention techniques and that is cheaper than spanning across gaps, then that would be preferable too.
“We’re realistic, reasonable people. We understand the limited resources but nevertheless this was a road used by emergency vehicles all the time on both sides and was let go.”
Importantly, Ms Montano said, “we are not looking for local government money. This is about them facilitating getting Commonwealth and state funding because there are infrastructure funds there at both levels – all we need to do is tap into it and then it becomes part of the normal fire trail maintenance program.”
Ms Montano said consultants have now been appointed by Hawkesbury to conduct the full feasibility study and have started discussions with the emergency services.
”The feasibility study is underway. We are just looking for a road that’s fit for purposes, which is a fire trail for category one standard [able to take the large Cat1 RFS truck].”
“We’re not engineers but our message is that we’ve come such a long way to get to the point where this feasibility study is being done, that we want it to produce the most cost effective solution to this serious community need.”
The fire trail has a long and chequered history. It was built as a Depression make-work project in the 1930s and for many years used as a normal route from the Mounts to Bilpin and to Sydney.
But it was gradually allowed to slip into disrepair and by 1990 Hawkesbury Council decided to close the section within its boundary - approximately 6.5 kilometres from the last property at Bilpin to Bowens Creek bridge - erecting gates to allow emergency access only.
Later, when the bridge began to deteriorate further, traffic was limited to 5 tonne gross vehicles only, meaning larger emergency trucks could no longer use it.
The Mounts residents hope the end – the Hawkesbury end, that is – is finally in sight.
