However Narromine Shire Council General Manager Jane Redden is reassuring residents the council are improving the road to help ease disruption. 

Residents are calling for Dubbo to fix the problem by creating a ring road to divert heavy vehicle freight. 

Earlier this year it was announced that Narromine Shire Council had received $25,000 to go towards a scoping study into the upgrade of the Tomingley to Eumungerie road. 

Ms Redden said that upgrading the existing road is necessary as it is increasingly being used by freight operators and heavy vehicles seeing to divert off the Newell Highway to avoid congestion in Dubbo.

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“We went into this because we want this route maintained properly because of the volume of heavy traffic,” Ms Redden said.

“And we want it to be of a standard that if it is going through town, then it will then have the least impact on residents.”

While conversations have begun to create alternative options for heavy vehicles bypassing the urban area, Ms Redden said these solutions are expensive and would take time.

“The bigger picture is yes we are looking at alternative options for heavy vehicle route diversions around the urban area, but they are a little further down the track and will be extremely expensive unless we’re lucky enough to get funding from the state, which we will continue to try and do,” Ms Redden said.

However it was comments made by Member for Dubbo Troy Grant that this road upgrade project would create a natural bypass of Dubbo, that sparked debate among residents. 

Resident Bruce Sherringham is concerned improving the road will increase the amount of heavy vehicle disruption passing through Narromine.

“This upgrade has the potential to move some of this heavy traffic away from Dubbo, without the significant cost of constructing a new ring road elsewhere,” Mr Grant said earlier in the year.

The push for a ring road around Dubbo was reignited by Dubbo Regional Council earlier this year, with suggestions by Dubbo Mayor Ben Shields that the road would take traffic from near Taronga Western Plains Zoo to the airport and then Purvis Lane bringing economic benefit to Narromine. 

“What’s the point in putting [trucks] through here and throwing Dubbo’s rubbish over the fence to Narromine,” Mr Sherringham said.

Mr Sherringham said the flow of heavy vehicle traffic through Narromine is “absolutely ridiculous” and said a number of locals living in the residential area “don’t want their rubbish”.