A community-led petition has now been started to urge the Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) to save the trees amid its planned $3 million upgrade of the road.

The RMS announced the works earlier this week citing the width of traffic lanes were below standard and that the road was “rough and narrow”.

Also that the trees in the tunnel obstructed storm water flows, did not allow sufficient light onto the road and any roadworks were “likely to have an adverse impact on trees” as the roots that run under the road.

Twenty-five people attended an RMS public consultation session on Wednesday where they were able to speak to an engineer and ask questions.

An RMS spokeswoman said: “There were questions about the proposed design of the road, including interest in whether the design could be altered to retain some of the trees along the road”.

Among those to attend was Hugh Gould who said the road surface was in “quite poor” condition.

“I wanted to make sure the issues the RMS were putting up were valid compared to the loss of habitat and environment, particularly in the tunnel,” he said. “If the locals want to keep it [the tunnel], they should drop it [speed limit] down to 50km/h.”

Bob Cassidy was also at the session and acknowledged that while the trees had an elm beetle problem, they were worth saving.

“I don’t really want to see much happen to it [tree tunnel], even though it’s a safety issue,” he said.

While 97.8 per cent of the 137 people polled on the future of the tree tunnel by the Perthville Neighbourhood Group voted to keep the natural icon.

Perthville Feed & Rural owner Danielle and Christian Ilieff have the petition on site in their shop and have queried the RMS’ claim that the number of accident in the area was part of the reason for the upgrade.

“Two accidents in five years, I don’t think that’s a problem, there would be other places in Bathurst that have more accidents,” Mr Ilieff said.

The RMS spokeswoman said all feedback at the public sessions would be considered before finalising the design for the upgrade and further sessions will be held next month.

The final design will be released early in 2018.

Another RMS public session is on at Perthville Hall from 4-7pm on Thursday.