By Callum Ludwig
The first Yarra Ranges Council meeting for 2025 was held on Tuesday 28 January and with it came a petition from Seville.
Speaker Amanda Dawson came forward to table a petition with 24 valid signatures calling for the sealing of Walker Road, Seville to be prioritised and for the petition to be included as part of the next Yarra Ranges Council community roads review.
Ms Dawson said her concerns with Walker Road are with the section from the end of Seville Primary School up into the east section of Victoria Road, which is an unsealed road.
“That road is not just a road used for the people who reside on that road, but it is also used for roads connecting, at the end we’ve got the east end of Victoria Road and we’ve also got some subsidiary roads that connect onto Victoria Road, at the other end of Victoria Road, it’s a no through road so it actually means that everyone who lives down that section will tend to use Walker Road as their through road to go to Warburton Highway,” she said.
“The current condition of Walker Road is severely corrugated, it is actually quite frequently graded, however, probably within one or two days of grading, the corrugations have returned because the dirt that’s been pushed in to level out the corrugations is just loose and that just moves out,”
“It also tends to make traffic along Walker Road travel at speed because people are trying to drive quite quickly over the surface because otherwise, your whole car is just shuddering as you move down the road.”
Many nearby roads in Seville have been sealed in recent years including Railway Road, English Street, School Road, Valley Road and even sections of Walker Road and Victoria Road themselves.
Ms Dawson said there is a continual narrowing of the road due to the crumbling of the edges of the road and the deep ditch drains on each side.
“There have been numerous cars that have ended up actually on their side in the drains because sections of the road are too narrow for cars to pass each other comfortably, particularly as we frequently have trucks using Walker Road, we also have horses being floated down Walker Road, we’ve got farm machinery going down Walker Road,” she said.
“Due to the lack of a footpath, it forces people wanting to walk down Walker Road to walk on the road, which isn’t very safe because if you’ve got a car coming, there isn’t a lot of space and it’s the dust impact as well… if you’ve got solar panels where you better be cleaning them very frequently,”
“There’s also a flooding issue at the south end of Walker Road, the end that is next to the school, what happened is that alongside the school was sealed and as soon as we get to the end of the playground, the sealing stops and that’s actually forced water across the bitumen surface of the road into the drains down one side, but then it’s just a big drain that empties into all the ditch drains so if you get heavy rain, those drains actually can’t take the water, it’s forcing it across the gravel section of Walker Road and causing big gutters across.”
Ms Dawson also raised concerns about the impact of flooding on the septic systems of residents, the potential fire hazard created by the narrowness of the road if vehicles can’t get past and the increased traffic caused by businesses such as Yarra Valley Cherries, BlueGum Farm and Round House Stables Horse Hospital.
Ryrie Ward Councillor Fiona McAllister directed a question to the Chair about where the sealing Walker Road might sit in Yarra Ranges Council’s priority list. The response was that Walker Road was a ‘high’ priority and within the top hundred roads in line to be sealed.
The motion was put forward by Chandler Ward Councillor Gareth Ward and seconded by Billanook Ward Councillor Tim Heenan.
“Not too much more to add, except that obviously we know that after the aftermath of losing $97 million for many of our unsealed roads in different parts of the Shire, we’ve now got to make serious decisions going forward, which I know that officers have been working on in the last year,” Cr Heenan said.
“I’ve got similar cases to a smaller extent in Mount Evelyn, so I can appreciate and understand and I sincerely hope it will be a great outcome for the future.”
