Published on Thursday, 30 January 2025 at 9:38:32 AM
Following extensive community consultation with regard to a possible “whole of area” speed reduction trial in late 2024, the City of Busselton Council has now decided unanimously not to proceed with that approach. At the Ordinary Council Meeting on 29 January 2025, the Council instead decided to request the support of RAC and Main Roads WA to progress a trial of speed reductions on a specific selection of 14 high priority roads and areas selected based on officer advice and community feedback. While RAC indicated at the meeting that they would no longer support the City’s involvement in their Safer Speeds Trial based on this road selection, the City will still continue to liaise with Main Roads directly to progress speed reductions on these roads as a matter of urgency in an effort to improve road safety. 
Modelling on 1,250 roads across the network was carried out in partnership with RAC and Main Roads WA over the last two years in an unprecedented partnership approach which enabled a detailed and holistic review of speed limits across the City of Busselton and Shire of Augusta Margaret River. This modelling, along with crash data from the last 4 years, was used to identify a list of priority rural roads within the City that require speeds to be reduced.
Mayor Phill Cronin said: “The Council recognises that while speed is clearly a key factor in the severity of injuries if and when a crash happens, the community did not believe that the “whole of network” trial methodology involving almost all roads within the City was an appropriate or effective approach. The City will now be focusing its efforts on tackling high priority roads based on modelling and crash data, and we will continue to advocate to the State Government to implement these speed reductions along with improved road safety campaigns.
“The original intent of the trial was to involve the community in selecting a list of roads that a speed reduction trial might be applied to. These might have been roads that people felt presented safety concerns or areas where people felt that speed limits needed to be reduced for a variety of reasons. We asked the community to nominate roads for inclusion in 2022, but then in late 2024 a second consultation was undertaken seeking community feedback to test their appetite for a more ambitious methodology which looked at almost all roads within the City. The overwhelming community opposition to the “whole of network” approach was clear. In the end, only 21.3% of people agreed that speed limits need to be reduced, and we thank the 1,103 survey respondents for taking the time to complete the survey and provide their comments”.
Another key factor in the Council’s decision-making was that the State Government, through Main Roads WA, advised the City in January 2025 that they would not be prepared roll back the speed limits after a three year trial, despite the City receiving continual assurances during 2024 that this would be possible. While there is now almost no likelihood of reversing speed reductions in any sized trial, the City would still support permanent speed reductions roads that were highlighted through outcomes of the research and the feedback from the public.
The City will now continue to advocate to Main Roads WA to request speed reductions be implemented on a specific list of roads and local areas in line with those listed in the Council’s decision, and continue to advocate for ongoing road safety campaigns and initiatives. The City also thanks RAC for their support while extensive modelling was undertaken on local roads.
The roads the City will request speed reductions to be applied on are as follows:
- Abbeys Farm Road
- Chain Avenue
- Commonage Road
- Geographe Bay Road (Geographe)
- Miamup Road
- Quindalup Siding Road
- Rendezvous Road
- Tom Cullity Drive
- Vasse Yallingup Siding Road
- Wildwood Road
- Kookaburra Way
- Dumbarton area
- Endicott Loop area
- Yallingup Siding area
For full details, please see the agenda (with supporting information) and minutes on the City's website >>
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