Politics & Council
27 October, 2025
Crater-size holes at centre of 'not our job' standoff
POT HOLES up to 25cm deep are greeting cars and trucks turning into the roadhouse at Bridgewater.
POT HOLES up to 25cm deep are greeting cars and trucks turning into the roadhouse at Bridgewater.
The Bridgewater-Serpentine Road entry is not part of the land title for the Ampol service station, according to a map shown to the Loddon Herald.
Trucks use the entry, metres from the Calder Highway, to park in a trailer drop zone.
Residents say it is not uncommon say see trucks and trailers left behind the service station, ready to be hooked up by the next operator.
But both Loddon Shire and the Department of Transport and Planning say it is not their responsibility to fill pot holes the size of craters, some now more than 1.5 metres wide .
Roadhouse manager Isabella Chapman said some customers had expressed disgust that the road entry was in poor condition.
“This is a truck drop area ... there are concerns for safety,” she said.
“People don’t always realise how deep the holes are, particularly after it has been raining when you can’t see the bottom.”
Customer Edward Rewi said: “Someone is going to get hurt.”
The Department of Transport and Planning said it had been contacted about the Bridgewater-Serpentine Road verge.
“Repair and maintenance of the service station driveway at the corner of Calder Highway and Bridgewater-Serpentine Road is the responsibility of the landowner given it is private land, as per the Road Management Act,” the department said.
Loddon Shire operations director Steve van Orsouw said council had inspected the craters but the entrance was not council’s responsibility.
“The council land they are occupying is an unused road reserve/paper road which is not on our road register so we have no obligation to maintain it. This sort of arrangement exists widely throughout the shire, e.g. farmers cropping on unused road reserves within their property,” he said.
“Council has made the responsible authority aware. The Department of Transport and Planning is responsible for the Calder Highway and Loddon Valley Highway.”
In 2022, the department investigated drainage concerns on the opposite side of the Calder Highway that left some Arnold Road residents landlocked by flood waters a similar distance from the road bitumen as the service station entry craters.
“The department will continue to regularly inspect the road and investigate drainage solutions,” a statement said at the time.
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