If nothing else the proposals for a deviation of the Great Western Highway through Hartley and the possible alternative of a Newnes Plateau route have generated some strong viewpoints and healthy debate.

Lobby groups in Hartley are opposing the suggested route through the valley.

Equally lobbyists, particularly those connected with the long running Bells Line Action Group, have emerged to support the Darling Causeway-Newnes Plateau option.

They see it as a foot in the door for the first stage of the Bells Line Motorway proposal they have been pursuing for years.

But also now re-emerging are the lingering doubts about what such a plateau bypass would mean for Lithgow as it would divert both Great Western Highway and Bells Line traffic around the city.

According to two NSW regional ‘highway towns’ that have had a similar experience the benefits have outweighed the negatives.

Both Goulburn and Yass previously had the very busy Hume Highway running through their town centres.

These days they’re both happier communities as the result of the highway deviations — at least that’s the view of community representatives contacted by the Lithgow Mercury.

Mayor of Yass Nick Carmody said initial fears of a disastrous impact had proved unfounded.

He admitted there had been a good deal of well founded concern.

“We had what we called Gasoline Alley in the middle of town with a row of service centre truck stops employing around 200 people,” he said.

“We realised these centres would die when the bypass went in so our Council became proactive in demanding a major service centre be established on the bypass,” Cr Carmody said.

“That employed the 200 people who lost their jobs in Gasoline Alley.”

The Yass service centre now boasts the biggest volume fuel sales in the Southern Hemisphere.

Cr Carmody said that with the trucks gone from the centre of town the Council went about a proactive redevelopment of the CBD to ‘reclaim the town for the community’.

The Council even built a new supermarket that it leased to Woolworths.

The result was that people who had previously gone to Canberra for their shopping returned to the ‘quieter and cleaner Yass’.

“Now it’s all positives,” Cr Carmody said.

He said even though the bypass was some five kilometres or so away from the town the tourists continue to visit.

It was apparently a similar story at Goulburn.

Chamber of Commerce spokesperson and local real estate agent Carol James said the Hume Highway bypass about 10 years ago was ‘the best thing that ever happened for Goulburn’.

“Taking the heavy traffic, particularly the trucks, out of our main street made the CBD much more user friendly,” she said.

She admitted that ‘some business felt the pinch for the first year’ but these were mainly the service stations that had now moved to the edge of town with the establishment of a service centre.

“Generally it has been a brilliant thing for the town,” she said.

“Saturdays and Sundays you can’t get a parking spot until mid afternoon because of the people who have come back to the CBD.”

She said there were also a lot of visitors coming into town and motels did not appear to have suffered.

“Our problem in Goulburn is the drought, not the bypass,” she said.

FOOTNOTE: There is, of course, a significant difference between the implications for Lithgow and the Goulburn-Yass experience.

In Goulburn and Yass the Hume Highway — the Sydney to Melbourne main corridor — passed through the main street.

In Lithgow the heaviest traffic is carried by the Great Western Highway, already on the western outskirts of the city.

It is the Bells Line traffic that passes through the mid city and not through the main shopping area.

If a proposed detour goes in both highways will bypass Lithgow.