Yass farmers trapped down 'impassable' Old Gap Road as statewide roads emergency declared

Mr Powell along with about 20 others, including a 98-year-old woman, live down Old Gap Road, Yass, which has now deteriorated to the point of being "completely impassable".

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With no other access roads into town, Mr Powell said the situation was "infuriating".

"We're running farm businesses out here, we've got kids that need to go to school and we need to get into town to get groceries," Mr Powell said.

Fellow farmer David Jordan said he had started offering his small patch of farmland for his neighbours to park their cars on, leaving them to walk the rest of the road to their homes.

Mr Powell said unlike some of his neighbours, he was fortunate to own two four-wheel drives, with one now permanently parked on the Yass side of the bog hole.

To get into town for groceries and pick up his granddaughter from school, Mr Powell drives about one and a half kilometres from his home to his farm side of the bog hole and walks across to his other vehicle.

"Going back home, can you imagine carrying heavy bags of groceries with a five-year-old granddaughter in hand across 200 metres of bog in the rain?" he said.

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Yass Valley Council made temporary repairs to the road on October 10 after Mr Powell and his neighbours lobbied Goulburn MP Wendy Tuckerman for more support.

According to the council, the main method used for repairs was to remove the saturated soil/mud to a firmer layer, cover the layer with geotextile and then add rock to enable water to flow through.

The council acknowledged that these repairs would not last for a significant time or take heavy traffic, and would need to be re-done regularly.

Mr Powell said after the first repair a four-wheel drive became bogged just two days later. The council returned on October 13 to carry out a second temporary repair.

Since then, the council has not completed further repairs to the road and the length of damage continues to extend.

"The temporary repair was not passable by normal car," Mr Powell said.

"[The second repair] failed just 10 days later when a lightly-laden sheep truck sank into the bottomless mud."

Infrastructure and Assets Director, James Dugdell, said it was unlikely that the road could be properly repaired until warmer weather dried the ground.

"The saturated soil can not be formed or compacted to make a suitable road formation," he said.

The council advised motorists to exercise caution and "drive to the road conditions".

"When there is rain forecast or occurring, motorists should reconsider their need to travel," Mr Dugdell said.

However, Mr Powell said the council's advice "dismissed" the residents' concerns about their ability to continue to run their businesses, get to work or even just buy groceries.

The farmer was also concerned about what would happen if his or his neighbours' families had a medical emergency.

With the Bureau of Meteorology predicting further rainfall and inundation for the eastern half of Australia at least until January, 2023, Local Government NSW has declared a Statewide Roads Emergency.

The declaration was unanimously supported by NSW mayors and councillors at the National Local Roads and Transport Congress in Hobart on Thursday, November 3.

Successive floods and torrential rain events, coupled with chronic funding constraints, have caused $2.5 billion in road damages and a collapse of the local and regional road network across the state.

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Yass Valley Council estimated that about 20km of unsealed road and 5km of sealed road would need a full reconstruction, and this would likely increase in the coming months.

"This along with culverts, bridge abutments and landslips currently has an estimated cost of $7-10million. However, this is difficult to quantify as the full extent of the damage is not yet known," Mr Dugdell said.

"The damage has become widespread and beyond the ability of local councils to fund with a significant portion of the road network needing repair works.

"State and federal support will be needed for several years to help councils all across NSW recover from this protracted wet weather event."

Yass Valley Council has applied for an extension of the Disaster Relief Funding that was made available after the flooding event in August 2022 to help cover the increased level of damage.

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