Wagga resident Shane Girdlestone, who uses Dunns Road at least once a week, wants to see the road upgraded after his friend, Tracey Gunston, died in an accident along the stretch less than a decade ago.

But council maintains works needed to upgrade the road are prohibitive because of its poor alignment.

Mr Girdlestone said there was severe drop-offs between sealed and dirt parts of the road, estimating it switched between sealed and dirt about five times over a five-kilometre, 80km/hr stretch.

“The answer is seal it all,” he said.

“Coming over the hill, you don’t know what’s coming the other way and you get sprayed with rocks.

“It’s hairy.”

It is an issue that has dominated the agenda of Uranquinty Progress Association for years.

“Every year it comes up,” president Deb Bewick said.

“I would love to see it graded all the way down, but I can understand as long as they keep maintaining it with grading then that’ll do us.

“It is something that comes up regularly.”

Some argue it could be more cost effective for council to completely re-seal the road rather than undertaking maintenance work on it several times a year, mainly after rain and extended dry periods.

But a council spokesman said the cost to seal Dunns Road was prohibitive because the alignment did not meet current design standards for a sealed road. 

“In order to correct the road alignment issues, major construction works would be required,” he said. 

“These works would likely require the relocation of power lines, acquisition of land, removal of significant amounts of vegetation, many thousands of cubic metres of bulk earthworks and reconstruction of a number of large drainage structures.”

The spokesman said regular maintenance works along Dunns Road included grading and re-sheeting the road with gravel, as much of it was loss from the road and degradation of the condition of the surface.

“Depending on the nature of these works the duration of the road closure may range from a couple of days up to a week,” the spokesman said.

“Council encourages motorists to use Red Hill Road, an arterial road designed to accommodate large traffic volumes, in preference to Dunns Road.”