Wagga Wagga veteran owner-operator Leigh Campbell wants better facilities for truck drivers and less nitpicking by the authorities on minor work diary errors
Leigh Campbell believes Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, urgently needs a 24-hour truck stop with fuel, meals, toilets, showers and enough safe parking for 50 or 60 trucks.
Crown land at the intersection of the Sturt and Olympic Highways would be the ideal location, he says.
The 72-year-old lives near Wagga and has travelled the Hume Highway for 44 years. He is frustrated that parking restrictions in Wagga make it difficult for truck drivers to park near food outlets or toilets.
“Truck drivers are very welcome in Wagga – just leave your bloody truck at home,” he says. He jokes that truckies should bring their own portable toilets. “And you’d better bring some deodorant because there ain’t no showers in the place.”
Campbell says Bomen, a growing industrial suburb in Wagga’s north, also needs a large truck stop.
In a letter to Owner//Driver, Campbell invites anyone who supports his cause to phone him on 02 6922 1216 during business hours.
Wagga City Council Mayor, Cr Greg Conkey, agrees Wagga needs better facilities for truck drivers. He says a recently completed Integrated Transport Study identifies the need for a truck interchange.
“Facilities are lacking, and it’s something that needs to be addressed by this council,” Conkey says. “We are addressing those. We’re certainly looking at improving those facilities, bearing in mind we had a very low base to start with. So anything would be better than what we have at the moment.”
Former Wagga City councillor Alan Brown pushed for better facilities for truck drivers during his time on council. “You’ve got to get a developer interested in doing it,” Brown says. “It would be an expensive proposition but there’s an absolute need for it.
“It needs to be someone that’s got vision and the money to do it. It would certainly be a commercially viable operation.”
Read the full story in the March 2018 issue of Owner//Driver.
Photography: Tamara Whitsed | Video: Tamara Whitsed