A TOWN planning scheme policy relating to extractive industries has been scrapped by Bridgetown-Greenbushes Shire Council after a local resident found it contained a series of flaws.

The shire is now using a little-used part (section 3.27) in the Local Government Act to take gravel and then pay landowners compensation, so local roadworks can continue while a new policy is drawn up.

Shire resident Bruce Bebbington has been watching the issue closely since gravel extraction began on a property neighbouring his.

He has attended council meetings over several months, claiming flaws in the council's policy and that the policy conflicted with other shire policies.

Shire manager of business units Bruce Lorimer said last week that, about a year ago, the shire introduced a new local law controlling extractive industry but found it was very restrictive on the shire's gaining gravel from local sources to do local roadworks.

The law required haulage plans and environmental assessments – which were really aimed at controlling large commercial operations.

The shire then introduced a policy in relation to extractive industries several months ago to make it easier and more cost-efficient for the shire to acquire gravel for local road works.

Mr Lorimer said the shire tried to source gravel from close to the works from private landowners. This had the benefits of lessening haulage costs and paying less than the commercial rate for the gravel.

"However, with the local law, it became a case of us approaching landowners for gravel but then saying they had to jump through all these hoops first, which would mean people just would not want to sell it to us," Mr Lorimer said.

The recent changes to the policy were aimed at taking away some of these "hoops" for small quantities of gravel for the shire or Main Roads WA for local road works.

Mr Lorimer said the changed policy had "a few issues that needed to be sorted out" and, in the mean time, enacting section 3.27 of the Local Government Act meant roadworks could continue.

"If we do not enact this act, we could be paying $10 per cubic metre plus the cost of transport, which is about the going commercial rate for gravel," Mr Lorimer said.

"This extra costs could severely limit the works that could be completed in the shire at this time."

Shire President Nick Oaks said this section of the act was not commonly used.

"However, this shire has a commitment to provide local roads and their maintenance and there is also a commitment to the rate-payer to do it as cost efficently as possible," Cr Oaks said.