They say you can’t stop progress but try telling that to the fire-in-the-belly residents of a Melbourne suburb who are determined to stop the local council from sealing the rustic dirt road that services their homes.
It’s a fight that somehow seems back to front, yet it might resonate with adventure-seeking grey nomads whose hearts sink at talk of bitumening the Gibb River Road, or of sealing a Great Outback Highway, or of adding more black stuff stretches to the route north up into Cape York.
Yes, access will be improved. Yes there will be less dust. Yes there will be less potholes. Yes, there will be less punctures … but does ‘progress’ mean we are also losing something uniquely Outback, something that makes the adventure special?
You can’t help thinking that the residents of Melbourne’s Surrey Hills who are banding together to fight Boorondara council over plans to seal Delta Street and its continuation, York Street, would be in the ‘let’s-keep-the-Outback-as-wild-as-we-can’ camp.
They argue that their municipality would lose a piece of ‘living heritage’ if councillors vote to press ahead with paving the roads.
The Age newspaper described the streets in question as being lined with sugar gums and native scrub and dotted with perambulating chickens. It says this dirt road is loved by many of the locals as a unique pocket of rustic tranquility in the heart of Melbourne.
Wow! Sounds like a great base for grey nomads to take a break from the rigours of the open road …and perhaps train up for the next big adventure.
The council is concerned about drainage problems and has recommended that the country-style road be paved at the cost of $250,000 from the federal government’s road program.
Friends of Delta Street spokesman Gerard Holmes told the Age that the road was built in the early 1900s when the area was subdivided and locals had lovingly maintained it – filling in pot holes – for the past 20 years.
”We all bought houses along this road because of the rustic charm of the area and to seal it will make it like any other road in suburbia,” Mr Holmes said. ”There’s so much progress going on (in Melbourne) that this is a chance for us all to stop and smell the roses – just enjoy what we’ve got – rather this constant need to change.”
A petition of residents in the local area in support of leaving it as an unpaved road garnered more than 600 signatures, Mr Holmes said.
Interesting stuff. We’ll keep an eye on this one to see if perhaps it gives us a clue to the long term future of some of our most iconic dirt roads. In the meantime, get out and safely enjoy as much of the wild Outback as you can … while you can!
