At its April meeting last week, Yarriambiack Shire Council released a draft list of priority roads and projects for the municipality, featured in the Regional Transport Strategy document.

These roads were the Hopetoun-Yaapeet Road, Sea Lake-Lascelles Road, Dimboola-Minyip Road, Banyena-Pimpinio Road, Minyip Banyena Road, Longerenong Road, Wypefeld Park Road and Lascelles West Road.

Yarriambiack Shire Council also released a list of roads upgrades and projects it would be prioritising in the immediate future.

The projects and road upgrades listed were Murtoa-Glenorchy and Horsham-Lubeck roads intersection; Warracknabeal-Birchip and Watchem-Warracknabeal roads intersection; Stawell-Warracknabel and Boolite-Sheep Hills roads intersection; Stawell-Warracknabeal and Sheep Hills-Minyip roads intersection; Boolite-Sheep Hills and Rupanyup roads intersection; and Jeparit-Rainbow and Warracknabeal-Rainbow roads intersection.

Council acting chief executive officer James Magee said the most pressing road safety project in the shire was the lack of traffic signals at a railway crossing north of Minyip, on the Stawell-Warracknabeal Road.

“It’s very unusual that this crossing doesn’t have signals, it’s almost the only one in the region that doesn’t have them,” he said.

“It’s concerning because that intersection would get about 400 vehicles every day.

“It has amazed me that no signals have been placed in all the years I’ve lived here, it really needs to be fixed.

“Even though it’s not our own road, we need to leave it on every safety priority list.”

Councillor Jean Wise agreed and said the intersection was a concern.

“It has been on the Road Safety Committee’s list for many years,” she said.

Councillor Shane Roberts suggested it would be an issue for the Minyip community to “get behind”.