DRIVERS who find the trip from Margaret River to Perth and back again a long one will be relieved to learn that work has begun on a $20 million twin roadhouse development on the Forrest Highway.
The new development will become the only roadside facilities on Forrest Highway after Settlers Roadhouse and Myalup Roadhouse just out of Bunbury.
In January, Member for Murray Wellington Murray Cowper MLA said the barren highway had meant drivers often run out of fuel and were forced to urinate and change baby nappies on the side of the road.
Mr Cowper said his concerns about the lack of facilities prompted meetings with Perth developer Tony Heyns.-
Mr Heyns took on the sites about ten years ago and said he had been waiting for daily traffic flows to increase enough to make the sites commercially viable to the incoming tenants.
He is now confident that this point has been reached.
Mr Cowper said the facilities would be situated on both sides of the freeway midpoint between Perth and Bunbury, five kilometres south of Greenlands Road in West Pinjarra.
"I understand that the new twin roadhouses will have a national fuel retailer as the key tenant, with major food and beverage franchises and that the facility is expected to be ready for operation before the end of 2014," he said.
"Both of the centres will cater for all vehicles including road trains and there will be attractive family rest areas and other amenities for travellers."
More than 100,000 tonnes of yellow sand and limestone base have been trucked to the sites over the past few weeks to create a new building base of up to 1.4 metres for each of the six hectare sites.
The $705 million Forrest Highway and Kwinana Freeway extension was WA'S biggest ever road infrastructure project when it was officially opened in September 2009.
