WHEN the Kooralbyn Road was closed as bushfires raced through the district last year the only escape route for thousands of local residents was locked off.
It was a time of major concern and it was also a telling reminder to the 2000 or so residents from the picturesque village that they live in a township which has one road in and just one road out.
It was little wonder that the bushfire incident also served to reignite the call that has been shouted loudly for more than three decades that there needs to be a new road cut through the hillside to link Kooralbyn with Boonah.
The fight for the road has been taken up by many over the years, but now it’s in the hands of a select group of just six led by committed Kooralbyn resident Sharon Rae and former Kooralbyn resident Lynne Carter.
Last year Sharon, Lynne and their group presented a submission to the Scenic Rim Council calling for funding for a cost benefit analysis for a future Kooralbyn to Boonah Road.
While the project requires only five kilometres of new road and the upgrade of gravel and dirt roads totally around nine more kilometres the 2023 council passed on the request with little debate.
Sharon said like many councils before them they didn’t see the road as a priority.
“It was disappointing, but we haven’t given up and we are going back with a more substantial submission to council on June 24,” she said.
“We have already reviewed it with the Shadow Minister for Roads, Steve Minnikin, who was very supportive and commented about the huge amount of work that had gone into it saying it was well written.
“It’s a new council and we hope they will see like us the desperate need to end the isolation of a growing village.”
The need for a link road between Boonah and Kooralbyn was noted in the Strategic Plan for Regional Development Australia which said the first step to making it a reality was for the Scenic Rim Council to commit to a cost analysis.
While the road’s action group numbers just six, the project has strong support from residents in both Boonah and Kooralbyn according to surveys undertaken in recent years.
“We did a letter box drop and carried out an online survey which showed that 90% of the more than 1000 who responded were supportive of the new road,” Sharon said.
At the moment residents in both townships need to drive for more than an hour to get to either centre. A new road would slash the driving time to just 20 minutes.
Importantly it would give residents from Kooralbyn a vitally needed escape route if fires swept through the heavily forested district once again.
