Council unanimously approved to direct Township staff to prepare a report in regards to the feasibility of improving Township Road 12, specifically between County Road 22 and Oxford Road 5, during the regular Council meeting on Wednesday, January 22, 2025.
The direction came after Council received correspondence from two residents in regards to the gravel road.
Currently, Township Road 12 consists of 18 residences, multiple large farm operations and businesses (including Stoneridge Custom Farming, Vehof Farms Inc., and Rathview Farms), one tourist business attraction, Udderly Ridiculous Farm Life, which draws over 10,000 visitors per year, and the Ratho Presbyterian Church.
“Despite the regular maintenance efforts of your road crew (Thank You!) in re-applying fresh gravel, regular grading and calcium application, seasonally this road becomes an increasing safety hazard with regular deep rut/pot holes, soft shoulders, soft mud and a high volume of dust,” said Janice Zarzycki and Shirley Peat in their letter to the Township. “Gravel magically disappears shortly after application with the amount of heavy farm machinery, transport/tanker trucks and cars using this road daily.”
Zarzycki and Peat noted that the road is often used as an alternative route if Country Road 8 is closed, and the two asked that council consider resurfacing the road in the near future.
“Can we put a process in place for review? Let’s have the traffic monitored in the spring to check the traffic numbers,” read the letter. “I would also suggest a review of 2024 costs of the road maintenance. Would there be a long range cost saving in materials and labour if pavement was installed?”
Cheryl Haskett, Co-Owner of Udderly Ridiculous Farm Life, also sent in correspondence concerning the state of the road and advocating for Township Road 12 to be moved up the priority list.
“We understand the Township does have a process in which roads are selected to be converted from gravel, based on five factors: traffic volume, number of businesses and houses on the road, connectivity to other paved (hard surfaced roads), road readiness (base improvements, culvert replacements) and best business practices. … I would like to offer some insight into data that the council may not be aware of and (further to Janice Peat’s request) we would like to advocate for Township Rd 12, Bright (between County Road 22 and Ratho) to be moved up the priority list.”
Haskett said that while four businesses on the road may not seem like a lot, since opening their agritourism facility, traffic on the road has gone from mainly trucks to thousands of personal vehicles.
“We have visitors to the farm coming from major city centres across Ontario and into the US. We attract what’s called high value tourists [and] these are individuals with significant spending ability often arriving in expensive vehicles to our region. We are also attracting corporate teams from major businesses as we deliver leadership training and team building,” wrote Haskett. “We went from having just a couple of thousand visitors when we opened in 2021, to nearly 10,000 visitors this year and our three to five year plan will see this number increase two to three times and include more visitors from the corporate sector and increase visitors year round.”
Before the vote to receive the correspondence as information, Mark Peterson, Mayor for the Township of Blandford-Blenheim, said he was looking forward to seeing a future report come forward.
“This is an example of how this road maybe wasn’t on our radar when we did our ten year plan, but when a new, very thriving business goes on that road, it can change that plan for us going forward,” said Peterson. “I look forward to the report coming back for sure because when you go from normal traffic to 10,000 plus vehicles going down a road, that changes that dynamic quite a bit.”
The vote was then carried unanimously and staff were directed to prepare a report in regards to the feasibility of improving Township Road 12.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
