Landslip impacts education
With children nearing high school age, Hannah Staben found the closure of Main South Rd restricts access to schools.
“There’s two schools - Korumburra and Leongatha - but when you look Warragul way, there’s a lot more options,” Hannah said.
While there isn’t a direct bus route along Main South Rd, Hannah said the stretch of road provides easy and direct access to the bus route which travels into Warragul. With the road closure, Hannah said the journey would be longer and involve travelling through the Poowong township.
“The bus to go to Warragul is in Mountain View, but we can’t even look that way because the road is closed and we can’t get through,” she said. “It’s limited our high school options.”
Despite her daughter wanting to attend a Warragul secondary school, Hannah said the impracticality of the road closure ultimately made the decision for them.
“There are a couple of schools in the Warragul direction that we would have considered looking at,” Hannah said.
“Especially for my next child, there were two (schools) in Warragul that we looked at and she was keen on.
But the extra time on the bus and not being able to go through (the closed section of Main South Rd), we’ve had no choice, she’s got to go to Leongatha.”
Hannah said access to certain areas of her farm had also been impacted by the road closure. With sections of her property being located on different sides of the road closure, Hannah said she had no choice but to go the long way around.
“I can cut through the farm but you can’t use the vehicles, you’ve got to go on the motorbike,” Hannah said.
“If we need to take something down (to the other half of the farm) on a vehicle, you’ve got to go all the way around.”