IT HAS taken 20 long years and numerous tragedies, but desperate pleas from North Burnett residents have finally been heard.
An exhausted community campaign to repair an unsealed stretch of the Monto-Mt Perry Road was reignited four years ago when Monto stalwart Lionel Cavanagh was killed in a head-on crash.
With no telephone reception in the area about 50km from Monto, Mr Cavanagh was just one of many lives lost on the lonely stretch of road.
In a heartfelt announcement last week, Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney pledged state funding to seal a further 12km of the treacherous track.
"Everybody was devastated when Lionel Cavanagh was killed and when Bruce Learmont was killed before him. The entire community has been touched by those tragedies," Mr Seeney said. "Emotionally it has become a very big issue for people who live in the North Burnett."
Having grown up in Monto, Mr Seeney knows first-hand the importance of the road to the close-knit community.
"Politicians get lobbied about all sorts of things, but I know in the Monto community there is no other issue that has impacted on people's lives to the extent that the Mt Perry Road has," he said.
"People have been fighting for it for as long as I can remember."
Mr Seeney said health-care access was one of the primary reasons for the road causing the community such angst for so long.
"Medical services are being centralised in our major regional centres and Bundaberg is the place where everyone gets sent for anything but a minor health issue," he said. "To get there, you need to travel over a road that is clearly dangerous and sub-standard."
The bid for funding put in by the North Burnett Regional Council, which will also contribute to the project, is being funded under round three of the state government's Royalties for the Regions program.
"It has been a personal crusade of mine to make sure that the Royalties for the Regions was in place from day one, even though we didn't have any money to spend on anything when we were elected to government," Mr Seeney said. "We needed to make sure that when the money did start coming in, it would flow to regional Queensland."
He said regional areas could expect a greater level of state assistance, with a further $200 million of Royalties for the Regions funds allocated to projects in 2014-15.
