Horsham Rural City Council has distanced itself from a consultant\u2019s report identifying a preferred Horsham alternative truck route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The preferred route turns off the Western Highway at Camerons Road, travelling across the Wimmera River, the rail line and the Henty Highway, before turning west into Gatehouse Road and rejoining the Western Highway, north-west of Horsham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At last week\u2019s council meeting, councillors noted a consultant\u2019s report on the Horsham Alternative Truck Route Feasibility Study would soon be finalised and released, but reiterated council had not yet established a position on the findings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Landowners along the recommended route received letters from the council on Monday \u2013 for many it was the first they had heard of the study. Ian Campbell, a retired Horsham surgeon who owns land in Camerons Road, labelled the recommended route as \u2018a totally dumb idea\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Campbell said much of Camerons Road was a flood plain, and the route would not only need significant investment to create bitumen roads, but also a bridge to cross the river, and overpasses over the rail line and the Henty Highway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said he had assumed a bypass route would be set further away from Horsham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just not far enough out, and it does nothing if you\u2019re a wheat truck coming from the Henty Highway \u2013 how the hell do you get down to Portland,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Campbell said the idea of an alternative truck route as a short-term solution because a bypass would not be fully funded, would not work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOnce they spend that much money on it, they\u2019re never going to build another one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The study builds upon the Horsham Urban Transport Plan, endorsed in 2020, which identified the need for a route that would better manage heavy traffic in and around Horsham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike a full bypass, an alternative truck route was proposed to use existing roads and remain relatively close to the urban area, aiming to reduce traffic congestion while still addressing the needs of freight and heavy vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The former council agreed to spend $100,000 for the planning work, with the Federal Government contributing another $150,000 to the study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Council\u2019s study, in partnership with the Department of Transport and Planning, involved a cultural heritage assessment, followed by an engineering assessment, which evaluated 12 potential alignments based on a range of technical criteria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The consultants\u2019 work was completed in late 2024, with a formal presentation on the technical aspects of the report made to the newly-elected council in early 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Council is planning to publicly release the final report this month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Horsham Mayor Brian Klowss emphasised the importance of careful consideration and community input in the decision-making process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCouncil has met several times to discuss the best approach for our community, whether that be an alternative truck route or a full bypass,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhile the alternative truck route report proposes a route on the northern and eastern sides of Horsham, council has not yet adopted this alignment, or any other alignment, as a preferred option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe understand the importance of engaging with our community to determine the best solution. This is a critical issue for the future of Horsham and its residents, and we want to get it right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cr Klowss said the council would continue to seek a bypass solution that addressed traffic-flow from the Western Highway and the Wimmera and Henty highways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At last week\u2019s council meeting, Cr Angela Munn, in moving the motion, said she supported council\u2019s open and inclusive engagement for the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have not formed an opinion on this at all. It\u2019s a journey, and one I hope the whole community gets involved in, so genuinely the more input we get, the better we are and the better the result will be,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cr Rebecca Sluggett said the preferred route was not a \u2018council line\u2019 on the map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have not established our position on that because we believe that\u2019s something our community needs to help us do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cr Cameron McDonald said he knew a lot of residents would be concerned about the preferred route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was a DTP feasibility study and as the motion says we\u2019ve not yet established a position, so that needs to be made very, very clear,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re yet to go back to the community. Now, the Department of Transport and Planning is not particularly happy about that because they had their line on the map and that\u2019s what they wanted.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t think that\u2019s very good at all because that line could potentially go much further out because what they\u2019re proposing is still way too close to town,\u201d Cr McDonald said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Department of Transport and Planning Barwon South West and Grampians executive director Michael Bailey said a project working group, which included council and the department, led the study, bringing together several technical disciplines including civil and traffic engineering, cultural heritage and environmental in a multi-criteria analysis of several route options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is a council-led study, where we worked with council to provide technical support on the working group,\u201d he said<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Horsham Rural City Council is inviting residents and stakeholders to join councillors on a community reference group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Council will engage with government agencies through a separate forum, and reports of those meetings will be presented to the group for information, or discussion as required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A comprehensive framework has been developed to guide the group to make final recommendations to the council in early 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Landowners along the recommended route received letters from the council on Monday \u2013 for many it was the first they had heard of the study.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":363989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,47],"tags":[12401,19487,19486,993,8],"class_list":["post-363988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-rail-news","tag-horsham","tag-horsham-alternative-truck-route","tag-horsham-rural-city-council","tag-melbourne","tag-victoria"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=363988"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":363990,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363988\/revisions\/363990"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/363989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=363988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=363988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=363988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}