The applicant wishes to build the preschool on Pestells Lane, a narrow dirt road which floods when it rains. When it’s dry, any vehicle travelling along the road throws up huge clouds of dust, severely reducing visibility and potentially polluting the drinking water of local residents who rely on tank water.

Mr Rickard is either uniformed or disingenuous in claiming that most of the preschool traffic will not travel on Pestells Lane but on the nearby Boxsells Lane, which is tarred. The most direct approach when coming from Nowra is via Pestells Lane, not Boxsells. And the current plans for the Berry to Bomaderry upgrade do not allow for a right hand turn out of Boxsells Lane onto the Princes Highway so once the new road is built, the only practical way back towards Nowra will be via Pestells Lane to a proposed interchange which will direct traffic southwards.

Local residents’ concerns are purely for local amenity and safety. If my children were pre-schoolers I would not be happy to drive them there along an extremely narrow dirt road every day, especially since most of the traffic will be coming and going at about the same time.

Visibility is extremely poor because of the clouds of dust thrown up by vehicles using the dirt road so there is an unacceptable risk of a serious head-on car accident or a toddler who happens to stray onto the road being struck by a car.

And, since the causeway at Boxsells Lane is impassable after heavy rain, the only route to the preschool in wet weather will be along Pestells Lane, which floods and becomes dangerously muddy.

It is my view, and that of other local residents, that until such time as Shoalhaven City Council upgrades Pestells Lane, it is simply not fit for the increased traffic a preschool will bring.

M. Martin,

Meroo Meadow.