Affidavits from a traffic engineer will form part of Noosa Council’s push to reduce the number of truck movements from the Kin Kin Quarry in its Planning and Environment court case against Cordwell Resources, a roundtable meeting heard on Tuesday.
Traffic engineer Stuart Holland from Holland Traffic Consulting will be Council’s independent court expert at the hearing scheduled for three days from 2-4 March.
In documents filed and uploaded to the Planning and Environment Court website, Mr Holland stated that after assessing correlations between crash data from 2001 to 2020 and the available truck volume data, he considers an acceptable number of movements would be a total of 10 truck movements per day.
Cordwell Resources will have an opportunity to respond to the material filed by Council.
Mayor Clare Stewart said she and members of the Kin Kin Roundtable remain concerned by the current conditions of Pomona Kin Kin Road.
“The number of quarry trucks on Pomona Kin Kin Road has increased in the last two years and we have always said the Pomona Kin Kin Road is not suitable for the number of quarry trucks currently travelling on this road and they continue to pose a great safety risk,” she said.
Cr Stewart said serious fears for the safety of school children and other motorists using the road were again raised at Tuesday’s meeting.
“With school resuming next week, our hinterland residents quite rightly are terrified about the increased truck movements and the return of school buses on the road,” she said.
Cr Stewart said the roundtable was seeking urgent assistance from the State Transport Minister to intervene under section 46 of the Transport Infrastructure Act 1994.
“We have written to the Transport Minister on several occasions requesting that he or the Director General step in and use their powers for an interim stop of the trucks on the state controlled road.” Cr Stewart said.
“We are gathering the necessary evidence for our court hearing, but also request the Department of Transport and Main Roads to consider what it can do in the interim to improve safety,” she said.
Council will now progress its application to the Planning and Environment Court seeking full enforcement orders centred on alleged breaches by the quarry operator and seek to address the intensification of use issues.
