Labor promises $1 million pothole rapid response team for Brisbane

Labor’s candidate for Brisbane Lord Mayor, clad in a fluoro vest and clutching a bag of cold bitumen, has promised to create a “rapid response team” to fix the city’s potholes.

LABOR has announced a $1 million pothole “rapid response team” as its second promise since the election was called at the weekend.

Labor Lord Mayor candidate Patrick Condren said the team would fix potholes and any cracks around them before they developed and could cause real damage.

He said residents had told him it was taking “weeks and weeks” to get potholes fixed.

“What we’ll be doing is sending this team out to address and tackle the potholes that have already developed as well as being pre-emptive to stop them getting any worse,” he said.

Suburb where fines rose 336 per cent in six months

Worst suburbs for feral and wandering cats in Brisbane

Brisbane City Council’s bus fleet could go fully electric

It comes after he announced at his official campaign launch on Sunday, a $6 million flying squad to fix 700 footpaths in one year.

The former TV journalist made the announcement in front of the intersection of Handford Rd and Enborisoff St in the northside Brisbane suburb of Taigum.

He was decked out in a high-vis vest clutching with a 10kg bag of bitumen - but did not fill in the pothole on the “busy road”.

“We’re not actually going to put the bitumen there but this bitumen, which I can say is very heavy, should be in that pothole,” he said.

“That’s the reality of it. And it’s not.”

Cr Jared Cassidy (Deagon) and Pat Condren at a pothole in Brisbane’s northside. Picture: Ellen-Maree Elliot

Mr Condren said outer suburbs like Runcorn and Calamvale were “particularly” bad, according to residents and the $1 million team would make “a really significant difference”.

Labor leader in the council, Cr Jared Cassidy, (Deagon) said his constituents contacted him “all the time” about footpaths, potholes and the condition of roads.

“The LNP talk big about road resurfacing, but in reality they usually only do small sections or patch jobs,” he said.

“So people in the suburbs, what have become the forgotten suburbs, really are being forgotten by this administration.”

Cr Cassidy said he asked the council for the road surface inventory list, which logs road defects, and said the council “denied us that information”.

“So even the most basic sort of information like where potholes are formed, and what work needs to be undertaken, is kept completely secret by Adrian Schrinner,” he said.

Cr Schrinner said he was not aware of Cr Cassidy’s road surface inventory list request “but he (Cr Cassidy) does make some outrageous claims and he’s been caught out making false claims in the past.”

A Brisbane City Council spokeswoman said Cr Cassidy was asked to refine an original request to make it more manageable, which he did, and the response was under way.

Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner Monday says there’s $2.5 million in the Budget for fixing potholes and staff know if they need more money “that’s not an issue”.

Cr Schrinner said the LNP administration’s spend on upgrading and resurfacing roads was a 300 per cent increase on what Labor spent on roads when they were last in power.

He said council had allocated $2.5 million to fix potholes in the previous budget, and ten crews were “out every single day … ready to fix potholes”.

He said the crews fixed an average of 1300 potholes a week, with dangerous potholes being addressed within 24 hours and others seen to within four days and staff were meeting those key performance indicators.

“We have given a very clear guidance to our staff that if they need more money, then that’s not an issue here,” he said.

“We just want them to get on the job and fix those potholes as quickly as possible.”

Cr Schrinner said the issue would not be fixed by “just throwing money” at it but rather ensuring potholes were reported as quickly as possible.