A message from the Mayor - Investing in our road network

Published on 17 August 2015

Many people would know that I am a passionate advocate for our transportation system and in particular, upgrades to our roads. 

Whether they are being completed by Council or VicRoads, there’s no escaping the fact road works will inconvenience someone at sometime – whether they are occurring in the CBD, on a major by-pass road, along a residential street or on one of our many unsealed roads.  But these are essential works and we are committed to making our roads safer and maintaining them to the best possible level.

This financial year Council has budgeted to spend $12.37million from our capital works budget on road renewal and major upgrades. An additional $5.1million will be spent on general road maintenance and repairs, which includes such things as grading, roadside slashing and kerb and channel maintenance. 

We have a huge schedule of works planned across the municipality and we really couldn’t achieve this without government assistance. While a significant portion of these works are funded through your rates, $1.4million of Black Spot funding, $5.17million of Roads to Recovery funding and $1.8million of Federal Assistance Grants will also support this work.

And while this money is definitely much needed, the fact remains that the pressure put on local government coffers to come up with road funding is significant and is growing each year. 

I was must say it was heartening to hear our Federal Member Andrew Broad give his support to regional roads in Parliament this week and urging for the Roads to Recovery Program to become a permanent feature of future budgets. It was great to hear him recognise Local Governments as being in the best position to deliver roads services to their communities and his request that the government to continue to support us by investing in this infrastructure.

There’s a long list of works we are desperate to see, including the much needed road upgrades and overtaking lanes on the Calder Highway between here in Ouyen.

As a community there isn’t a whole lot we can do to help extend the life of our road works.  The longevity of a roads life is influenced by many factors including weather, the type of soil under the road base and the amount of heavy traffic using the road. 

But as a Council we are prioritising works and trying our best to keep our maintenance costs at an acceptable level and we need to keep the pressure on to ensure the taxes you pay to the State and Federal governments come back to our community.