Last Saturday 8th February 55 residents met to discuss MidCoast Council's “lower cost options” for the Gooreengi Rd/Somerset Ave intersection burnouts.
The mood of the meeting was quite angry, with residents unhappy that Council would penalise them and put their safety at risk because of the failure of Council and the Police to stop the burnouts.
The Council had asked for feedback on these options since its backflip last month on installing CCTV camera surveillance.
Two Councillors and the Acting Inspector Port Stephens/Manning Highway Patrol attended the meeting.
Residents unanimously rejected the first two options of temporarily closing one end of Gooreengi Rd, and turning off the street lighting at the intersection.
With the third option, raised pavement markers, residents, like Council, were concerned that such markers wouldn’t work.
Residents felt that in the long-term Council should re-engineer the intersection so it wasn’t suitable for burnouts, but in the short term – being asap – Council should install CCTV as a deterrent and to provide video footage to the Police for enforcement action. Residents would also like to have a timetable for these actions.
In the meeting the Chair showed a short video of the March 2024 burnout that went wrong and seriously injured two female observers. This video clearly showed the speed and danger from these burnouts and how lucky that burnout participants or residents driving home late at night had not been killed by such activities.
Considering the negative feedback of Council’s lower cost options, we have emailed the Council General Manager asking him to advise what Council now proposes to do to stop the burnouts, and the timetable for doing so.
We hope that Council will respond to this in a timely manner.
A copy of the email and the presentation used in the meeting are attached.
A copy of the March 2024 video was sent to the Council. We have not attached it to this article because it is very graphic and contains a lot of the F*** word.
Residents also sent feedback by email and mail on Council’s options – this feedback has been sent to Council, and a copy is attached. Further feedback has been received since the meeting, and this has been sent to Council.
