The Lower Creek community is still disappointed and insulted after a scheduled meeting with Northern Tablelands MP Adam Marshall did not take place last week.
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The furore is over the classification and fixing of one of the regions most perilous routes - Kempsey Road.
Most of the 64 kilometre Kempsey Road within the Armidale Local Government Area (LGA) is gravel. The road roughly follows the Macleay River to the coast and becomes Armidale Road when it enters the Kempsey LGA, at about the halfway point.
Before 2007, it was always classified as a regional road. However, during that year, the RMS's then equivalent changed the classification of the then Armidale-Dumaresq Council side of it from a regional to a local road.
The road's condition has deteriorated ever since. While there is state and federal money allocated to fix it, Armidale Regional Council says they do not have the capability to do so Lower Creek LAC vice-chair Scott Weigand says.
"There is close to $10M in total which has been allocated to fixing the road, and none of it has been spent except to fix two corners which have since been washed away," Mr Weigand said.
"Council keep telling us they don't have the capability and we are stuck because state government is not doing it either and in the meantime, while all this red tape rubbish is going on the road is getting worse.
"There is money there, but nothing is happening.
"We want to speak to Mr Marshall, but he is just not fronting up."
Following the severe landslide at Devil's Nook on Armidale Road at Bellbrook in December ( and the subsequent media coverage) the group say they reached out again to Mr Marshall.
"We have been trying to meet with Mr Marshall for a long time, and after the news stories we followed up with his office again and organised to have a meeting at the Lower Creek Fire Shed at 2 pm last Wednesday," Mr Weigand said.
"We had a call from his office saying he might be running late and we agreed that he would come when the road would be open between 3 pm and 3.30 pm at the Armidale end."
The road is currently only open to the public at certain times while crews are carrying out repairs following the landslide.
"He could have got through anyway as there was someone there waiting for him, and we explained this to his office, but he was insisting he went through when the road was publicly open," Mr Weigand said.
"So we agreed he'd get to the fire shed at about 3.30 pm.
"We had been sitting there since 2 pm as we didn't get the message he was running late until the meeting was about to start, and then we got another phone call at 3 pm that advised he was not coming."
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Mr Weigand said residents were 'fed up' and insulted by Mr Marshall's last-minute cancellation and subsequent silence.
"We had taken it in good faith that we'd have a meeting with Adam, but he has been a no-show, and he has still not contacted me to reschedule as we were told he would," Mr Weigand said.
"We've all got our own lives to lead, and I shouldn't have to chase him up when he cancelled the meeting.
"I travelled six hours on Tuesday night from the Central Coast to meet with him, and others had also travelled hours to be there.
"People put things that they were doing on hold to attend.
"We are all feeling rather disillusioned with our local member and feel that he is not representing us, and is not talking to us.
"You see photos of him on Facebook having a coffee, or sharing scones with someone, and we just think he has his priorities all wrong - he should be talking to the people that need to talk to him."
Mr Weigand said there is currently a 4.3 tonne limit on the road and many local farmers can't get their stock to market.
"Our biggest cattle farmer, Shane Booth, has been through the drought and fires and now can't get an income," Mr Weigand said
"Around 200 residents in Lower Creek rely on the road, and that's not including Armidale or Bellbrook residents.
"The road is deteriorating and the longer they leave this, the worse it is getting, the longer it will take to fix, and the more money it will cost to fix it."
Mr Weigand said it is not just making residents life livable that is at stake.
"If the road were fixed it would also open up the area to tourism and offer an alternative to the Waterfall Way route.
"It would be great for both Armidale and Kempsey, so it just doesn't make sense why they are stuck in the stone age with this thing."
Mr Weigand said his action group had sent a letter to Adam Marshall, Barnaby Joyce and Armidale Regional Council in November last year outlining concerns over the road's stability if there was a heavy rainfall event.
"Then in December we had 460 mm of rain, and that is exactly what happened at Devil's Nook," Mr Weigand said.
"As people that live and work there, we know the topography, we know the condition of the road and the weather, and we understand the risks posed if nothing is done.
"The fact that Mr Marshall hasn't even bothered to turn up to a meeting and hasn't even bothered to call as a courtesy is very disappointing.
"We're not trying to have a witch hunt here, but people's livelihoods are affected.
"You take a risk every time you drive on the road, and it shouldn't be that way.
"We should be able to drive from a to b and not feel the road is going to fall away from under our car.
"At the end of the day, we don't care who we talk to we just want to see our road fixed."
The Armidale Express contacted Mr Marshall's office twice last week to get a comment, but it had still not received one at the time of publication.