Billapaloola Road,Tumut.

Everyone uses roads and they are a vital part of the economic fabric of regional and rural communities. It’s doubtful though, if any industry is more intensive in its usage and length of roads than the plantation timber industry.

Forests NSW director, Peter Crowe, said building and maintaining roads was synonymous with growing plantations – the two cannot be separated.

“So much of what we do is reliant on good roads and Forests NSW intensive roading network is the basis, not only for the supply of our plantation products, but for protection of the plantation estate from fire, and all these things benefit our regional communities,” Peter said.

Across the state, there are vast differences in ownership and management of roads in plantation areas.

In Forests NSW Monaro Region, most of the transportation task is undertaken by state and regional roads. Examples are the Monaro Highway and the Bombala to Delegate Road. These roads carry the wood over 90 per cent of the distance to the processor.

In the Central West, most of the wood is transported on regional and local roads. Forests NSW roads are responsible for 10 per cent of the log haul.

But in the South West Slopes, the story is very different. Around Tumut and Tumbarumba, Forests NSW manages an estate of almost 90 000 hectares with approximately 8000 kilometres of road, of which more than 90 kilometres is sealed, and carries out 55 per cent of log haul distance.

“Across most of the State forests there are small construction and maintenance teams,” Peter said.

“However, in the South West Slopes a large and specialised team exists to manage high standard road construction and contract out a range of tasks including blasting and gravel crushing, bitumen sealing and road line marking.

“A number of foresters have presided over these operations across many years but Phil Collins, construction and maintenance supervisor in the region, has been outstanding,” Peter said.

By contrast, in the Central West the construction and maintenance task has fallen to specialised construction units operating within local councils such as Oberon.

In these situations, Forests NSW has agreed to roading plans with the councils and funds a very high proportion of the works carried out specifically to permit timber haulage.

At Oberon, Forests NSW and the Council have worked together on a four-to-five year plan to upgrade Shooters Hill Road and a number of connecting shire roads in the Gurnang and Vulcan plantations.

While at Sunny Corner plantation, in conjunction with Bathurst and Lithgow City Councils, some $4.5 million worth of work is underway.

In the north of the state, Forests NSW plans to upgrade Hanging Rock Road from Nundle through to Hanging Rock plantation. This project should cost around $1 million with most of the work being carried out by Tamworth Regional Council.

Peter said the annual cost of road construction and maintenance in the plantations has been running at round about $15 million a year, but this is set to increase to provide a higher standard of transport and lowest possible haulage costs to Forests NSW steadily expanding customer base.

“The expansion of timber processing and the consequent improvement in local and forest roads has been a boon to regional communities who now have better standard, safer roads and more jobs and economic development in their regional communities,” he said.

This article appears in the Winter 2006 edition of Bush Telegraph Magazine.