It follows concerns raised by Councillor Bob Haddin and supported by Cr Ken McGrath at last week’s Parkes Shire Council meeting in Tullamore.

Cr Haddin said he believed council was acting ‘a bit hypocritical’ by not imposing a weight limit in light of the money spent on the CBD in imposing lower speed limits and the establishment of speed humps.

“Is there any reason why there hasn’t been a weight limit of say four tonnes imposed for vehicles in the Parkes CBD?” he asked.

“Aren’t we as a council being a bit hypocritical here? On the one hand we are saying the CBD must be safe by putting in speed humps but on the other hand we allow trucks to pass through the area.

“I don’t care what anyone says, one truck in the CBD is one truck too many,” Cr Haddin said.

He was supported by Cr McGrath who had raised the matter at previous council meetings.

“A five tonne limit is easy to implement. They’ve done it in Bathurst and Orange, why can’t we do it here? All that is needed is appropriate signage either end of Clarinda Street,” Cr McGrath said.

Mayor Ken Keith said it wouldn’t be that simple.

“We would need to sign-post every entrance,” Cr Keith said.

This was confirmed by Kent Boyd (Council’s Director of Infrastructure) who indicated that a minimum of 11 and up to 22 signs would be required to define the CBD area.

Cr McGrath went on to describe the current situation as a tragedy waiting to happen.

“A child will run under a truck one day. It will happen, unless we do something about this.

“We need a five tonne limit to act as a deterrent. Of course the exception would be garbage trucks and construction vehicles,” he said.

Mr Boyd reminded Cr McGrath that council was not against the idea.

He pointed out that the load limit issue previously raised by Cr McGrath had been referred to the Local Traffic Committee (LTC).

“To assist in the consideration of implementing load limits, the LTC requested an analysis of the volume and type of trucks using the CBD,” Mr Boyd said.