A HUNTER man is camped on the doorstep of his local council office in an attempt to have what he says is a "temporary" road removed from his property.
"I'm out of here until I've got a resolution. Today's the ninth day and I plan to be here, two weeks, a month or longer if I have to," Deryck Edwards said on Wednesday.
"I'm here to hold them accountable. I'm sick of the lies, I'm sick of the mucking around and I'm sick of the stonewalling and excuses."
Mr Edwards said Dungog Shire Council approached him following the devastating 2015 floods, seeking to install what was pitched as a temporary access road through his property.
The Torryburn Bridge had washed away during the flooding and in order to allow access for milk tankers and horse trucks to Torryburn properties, Mr Edwards said he agreed to the road being built on his land near Gresford.
"We said, 'look, whatever you've got to do'. Because our neighbours are dairy farmers and they were pouring milk down the drain," he told the Newcastle Herald.
"We allowed council free run of our property, allowed them to do what they had to do to get their road through.
"The only stipulation was that once the bridge was repaired the property was to go back the way it had been."
Mr Edwards said he had a meeting with councillors, other landowners and an engineer of the project who all agreed to the conditions.
"It was a pretty chaotic time, as you can imagine, so they were supposed to print up the contract and send it to our solicitor," he said.
"We rang them almost every day for six months and every time they told us they were too busy, so we still haven't seen that contract."
Mr Edwards said this was the beginning of a run of "false promises and lies" - the new Torryburn Bridge has been finished since February 2016.
"Two weeks before the bridge was finished we heard that council was pursuing compulsory acquisition of our land and they wanted to keep the track there as a public road," he said.
"We argued for years and in 2019 I got information that the council was voting on pursuing the compulsory acquisition in the courts."
Mr Edwards claims councillors were informed that all landowners had agreed to the compulsory acquisition. So he took a group of them out to his property to show that the road was not viable as emergency access due to low culverts and the fact it was prone to flooding.
"They spent the whole day with us, walked the road, understood the issues and passed a resolution to drop the acquisition and re-instate the land to its original state," he said.
As well as removal of the road, Mr Edwards is seeking compensation for his losses.
When he initially thought the issue was resolved in 2019, Mr Edwards sold stock and emptied the paddock ready for contractors to begin work.
"On top of that, I've had firewood stolen, some of my cattle hit by cars and one day I came out to find three empty cartons of beers and rubbish from takeaway food where someone had used the road to come in and have a party," he said.
"Someone tried to steal the pump for my dam. They didn't disconnect the power when they removed it from the water so it burnt out and I almost lost stock."
Mr Edwards said these issues were only the surface of problems community members have with council.
"I've got phone numbers of so many people around Dungog who have had similar dealings with council and we are sick of it," he said.
"The main issue for me here is that if I give someone my word that I'm going to do something, I do it.
"They gave me their word that it was a temporary road and they didn't even have the decency to ring me and work with me. They just flatly started the process of compulsory acquisition."
The Newcastle Herald approached Dungog Shire Council for comment on the matter but were told the issue is "subject to current legal process" and council has "no comment".
