Tractor artistry powers on as Horsepower Highway named as Tidy Towns Award finalist

The transformation of the long and winding road to Stirling Range National Park into a tourist attraction has been recognised as one of the best community action projects in WA by being named as a finalist in this year’s Tidy Towns Sustainable Communities Awards.

GNP 360 has transformed Broomehill-Gnowangerup Road and Formby Road South, a typically traditional road connecting regional towns, into the Horsepower Highway through the installation of 20 tractor displays.

The highway, from Broomehill, through Gnowangerup and south to Stirling Range National Park, features creative tractor displays, such as Mad Max, Snowy and the Lucinda Tanks, each created and owned by the community.

After just hosting the opening of the Great Southern Bloom Festival, Keep Australia Beautiful has recognised the 75km project as one of six finalists for the Community Action and Wellbeing category of the Tidy Towns Sustainable Communities Awards. Horsepower Highway project manager Cassandra Beeck is one of 10 representatives from Gnowangerup set to attend the awards ceremony at Optus Stadium on November 26.

Ms Beeck, who is also the secretary of GNP360, said it was an “amazing accomplishment” for the Gnowangerup community to be recognised for their hard work on the Horsepower Highway.

“So many community members have been involved ... we have had in excess of 125 people in a town of only 600 that have individually helped out in one way or another,” she said. “It’s also very exciting because this will give us and our highway a lot of publicity now that we are finalists.”