By Deanne Jeffers
LESS than a year since emergency works were carried out on the Nixon and Wyndham Street intersection, the roadway has again fallen into disrepair. One reader, James Evans, said he raised the alarm with VicRoads on January 12, after a concerning rattling noise started in the front end of his car after travelling over the area.
The intersection was the scene of a pavement traffic hazard on November 11, 2022, sustaining damage during the October 2022 flood event, which was made safe with large steel plates. Following this, Regional Roads Victoria was then back at the scene February 21 to 23 to conduct emergency works in 2023.
However, by January 2024 the roadway had begun to sink again.
“I’ve had to have my struts replaced due to the sinkhole at Wyndham and Nixon street,” said Mr Evans. “All VicRoads and the Council seem to do is put a Band-Aid over the top of potholes that end up failing and the pothole ends up just as bad.”
“After hitting the bump, the front end of my car had a horrible rattle noise. I submitted a report on Send, Snap, Solve when it happened, and I’ve just been waiting for my mechanic to come back to be able to fix the car.
“It cost me $510 to have the strut bushes replaced because they had snapped,” he said, adding that since making the report on the app for reporting hazards, “January 12 I reported it and they have only recently put a yellow plate over the sinkhole.”
Documents from Mr Evan’s mechanic state, “Inspected front end suspecting knock to be coming from strut top mounts, everything else is ok.” Unfortunately, the damage costs more than Mr Evan’s insurance excess, and the damaged is less than VicRoads threshold amount of $1,580 to be able to claim damages from the state’s road body.
