Dorset Council received a community petition to extend both the 40km/h and 60km/h speed zones in the area, and are now planning to take an application for extension back to the department.

Acting Dorset Mayor Greg Howard said that although Musselroe Bay was a small community its population often swelled during school holidays.

"At times of the year, like during the holiday season, it's a reasonably busy little piece of road, and some of the vision's not that good through there, and I think the residents just wanted to try and basically slow people down a little bit," he said.

"We forwarded their concerns and an application to the Department of State Growth to extend the 40km/h speed limit and the 60km/h speed limit, just so that we could try and meet the wishes of the residents, but at the moment State Growth has come back to us and said 'we can't do it.'

"We have to do some other work up there before they'd even consider it, and that's not something we've looked at yet."

The speed zone extension was discussed during Dorset Council's most recent meeting.

On July 1 the council invited community members to make written representations to the council's application to be sent back to the Department of State Growth.

Cr Howard said the council intended to continue working on the issue.

"We'll continue to negotiate with them and see if there's anything other that we can do to improve the roads and improve the visibility, and maybe improve it to the point where they will let us drop the speed limit," he said.

The Department of State Growth has also ruled out dropping the speed limit on the Snake Track from 80km/h to 40km/h.