Forest Road, already used by 1100 Cadia mine employees each day alone, is expected to experience a sharp increase in traffic volumes after the new Rural Fire Service Control Centre, Orange Base Hospital and Orange Private Hospital open in the area in the next three years.

The linen service has made repeated appeals to Orange City Council to reduce the speed limit on the busy roadway from 80 to 50 km/h to help increase staff safety.

Linen service management has also asked council to widen the road to allow for a turning bay for the hundreds of staff who exit and enter the premises’ car park each day.

All attempts have failed, with council staff informing management that “should you wish to purse the turning lanes you will be required to provide a technical design and fund the project”.

While the linen service cluster manager John Healey would not comment on the matter of funding the roadworks yesterday, he did highlight the seriousness of the problem users of the road face.

“Obviously it is a very busy road with a number of speeding vehicles and for the safety of our staff we have made these requests to council. There have been many reports of near misses and even one accident right out the front some time ago,” he said.

While council is unlikely to review the road’s speed limit until the new Orange Base Hospital opens, they have commenced a traffic study along the road that included automatic counting and observations from council staff.

“It’s only fair to wait and see what the outcome of the traffic study is and we can go from there,” Mr Healey said.

The results of the survey will be presented to Orange’s Traffic Committee for recommendation to a full meeting of the new Orange City Council.