Calls for Munglinup Road to be upgraded after fatal accident earlier this year. Photo: Google Maps.
Munglinup farmer Max Szulc is calling for Federal Black Spot funds to fix a section of road where a 30-year-old Esperance woman lost her life when her car collided with a grain truck on March 1.
Police say the fatality occurred on South Coast Hwy 2km from Munglinup Road House.
“Friends of mine, the first responders, had to deal with it and it was a terrible thing to put them through,” he said.
“The truck driver involved, heaven knows what he’s going to be like for the rest of his life to have to put up with what happened.”
At public question time this week Mr Szulc asked Council if the Shire could apply for Federal Black Spot funding to have the road made safer at this point, as Main Roads did not have the funds.
Shire chief executive Shane Burge said he understood the Shire could not apply for the funding for this spot as it was not on a Shire road, but belonged to Main Roads.
He said Esperance, Ravensthorpe, Jerramungup and Albany local government CEOs had met Main Roads staff on Monday to work out a strategy to better advocate for such funding.
“I think there’s appetite definitely within Main Roads to do work on that project, as you said they can’t do it because they haven’t been allocated the money,” Mr Burge said.
“It is a priority project for us as the local government.”
He said Esperance Shire often obtained Black Spot funding for shire roads.
“We actually applied for Black Spot funding for a number of our roads,” Mr Burge said.
“Something else we can advocate in Main Roads to do, is that they should be applying as well, for Black Spot funding for their roads,” he said.
