Project update October 2024
Road closure from 14 October for three weeks
The City of Onkaparinga will soon implement a full road closure on Piggott Range Road, Chandlers Hill, between Grants Gully Road and Education Road (including Easton Road and Gunyah Road) as part of the life-saving $1.55 million project to improve road safety.
The road closures will commence from Monday 14 October 2024 from 7am to 6pm (Monday to Friday) for three consecutive weeks (weather permitting).
We will continue to maintain access for local residents and businesses within the work zone while the road closure is underway, with all other traffic diverted onto Grants Gully Road and Education Road. Your can view the detour route on the detour map.
Piggott Range Road will be open to traffic with safety restrictions in place outside of these hours.
Further road closures will be required on this section of Piggott Range Road for pavement treatment works and we’ll again provide advance notification.
Thank you for your patience and understanding while we undertake this important road safety work.
Background
A $1.55 million road safety project to save lives along Piggott Range Road, Chandlers Hill is scheduled to begin in the 2023-24 financial year.
Residents and road users of this section of Piggott Range Road have regularly raised concerns, including via elected members about the prevalence of crashes here, which has sadly resulted in the loss of life.
The project, funded through the federal government’s Black Spot program, will upgrade a 700 metre section of the road where a history of crashes has occurred on either side of Easton Road.
To accommodate the roadwork, up to 123 trees have been identified for removal. 110 of these are protected by the Native Vegetation Act, which require approval from the Native Vegetation Council for their removal through a formal process. Of the remaining trees not protected by the Native Vegetation Act, two of these require separate approval under the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Act 2016
Both the above approval processes for tree removals require the planting of new trees to offset the impact of their removal.
While removing trees to facilitate a project is always a last resort, in this case, it’s in the interest of saving lives, and the upgrades can’t be completed without tree removals. Through careful planning and redesign, we have managed to significantly reduce the number of trees impacted than initial investigations.
The upgrade will include, but is not limited to:
- tree removal
- improving the shape of the curves located on either side of the Easton Road intersection by reconstructing the road
- improving superelevation (the banking of a roadway along a horizontal curve so motorists can safely and comfortably manoeuvre the curve at reasonable speeds)
- increasing the width of sealed shoulders where possible
- installing a protected turn lane for vehicles turning right from Piggott Range Road into Easton Road
- removing roadside hazards
- providing guardrails to protect vehicles from roadside hazards if required.
We anticipate work on the road safety upgrade to commence and be completed in the 2023–24 financial year.
For more information, please read the Frequently Asked Questions and view the location map.
Community engagement
We sought feedback and insights from locals and road users from 24 April to 21 May 2023.
A community information (drop-in) session was held on Wednesday 10 May at Clarendon where community members spoke with the project team about the safety upgrades and asked questions.
Thank you to everyone that provided feedback via the online feedback form, emails, phone calls and at the community information session.
