However, Councillor Paul Funnell challenged staff’s figures, citing a recent $300,000 quote to pave a longer road.

“I think someone’s taking some licence,” Cr Funnell said.

“I received a report as a councillor a few months ago that said we can seal 5.4 kilometres of Tooyal Road for $300,000 and it’s an open speed limit, 100km/h, with farm machinery, trucks, tractors, they all go down there, but we want to spend in excess of $5 million on this one.”

At council’s April meeting, it was revealed a former director had given a verbal agreement to seal 5.4 kilometres of Tooyal road for Rocky Point Quarries, a condition of expanding its Euberta operation. A staff report indicated the cost to seal the road was $300,000, but councillors rejected that plan because there was no formal agreement in place.

The two roads cannot be directly compared, Cr Funnell admitted, which was why he asked to engage an independent consultant to give a rough estimate on the actual cost to seal Dunns Road.

According to the staff report presented to council, a condition of the federal funding from Riverina MP Michael McCormack was to close Dunns Road if an alternative use for the money was found, which drew criticism from deputy mayor Dallas Tout.

“I can’t vote for anything without more detail… this is voting to close Dunns Road,” Cr Tout said.

“I’m not going to vote sight unseen – no workshops, no reports, no staff involvement, no nothing – to shut a road.

“I can’t support something to close this road.”

Cr Rod Kendall attempted to move an amendment to seek out viable alternatives to repairing Dunns Road, which could then be taken to Mr McCormack for approval, but he failed to secure support from his peers. 

“There have been a couple of fatalities on Dunns Road and a couple more near fatalities in recent months,” Cr Funnell said.

“I know the report states it would cost in excess of $5 million, there are problems with intersections, the road reserve’s not wide enough, there are all these problems.

“But no-one said it had to be a 100km/h road, no one said it had to be an 80km/h road, no one said what the finish had to be, we’re not building the Hume Highway.”

Councillors agreed with Cr Funnell’s proposal to engage consultants and staff were asked to get a further report with high level concepts and estimates for the development required for Dunns Road.