Premier vows to fix battered road network with $500m pothole repairs

Hundreds and thousands of potholes across the city and the bush will be fixed with a half a billion dollar funding package. Here are the council areas that will benefit most.

Premier Dominic Perrottet has pledged to fix the state’s flood-devastated road network — committing to fund a half a billion dollar repair bill.

Councils across NSW will get access to $500m in funding to fix hundreds of thousands of potholes in the aftermath of consecutive floods.

The cash will support emergency and heavy patching and pothole repair work and allow councils to get more boots on the ground quickly to fix the issue.

Premier Dominic Perrottet and Deputy Premier Paul Toole will announce the funding on Tuesday in the central west with about $280m expected to go to regional councils while another $220m is spent in Greater Sydney.

The money will be in council coffers within weeks so work can begin early into the new year.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet. Picture: Richard Dobson

Mr Perrottet said the government recognised that potholes were “a major hazard” to community safety.

“We have listened to councils and we understand the pressure they are under from many months of wet weather. This funding boost will help councils continue the huge job of bringing roads back up to scratch to keep our state moving,” he said.

$500m will be spent on fixing potholes, like this one on the corner of Newington and Wemyss streets in Marrickville. Picture: John Appleyard

“We are making sure our roads are in the best nick possible so NSW families, truckies, farmers and tradies can travel around our state safely.

“We recognise potholes are a major hazard right now. This critical funding injection will help every council across the state patch up potholes as well as carry out other emergency repair work.”

Mr Toole said the road network had been battered and some roads had been washed away in landslips — resulting in a mammoth repair bill.

“Families who hit the road during Christmas would have seen first-hand the scale of the damage caused by last year’s flooding and rain,” he said.

“Since the February floods we have repaired more than 170,000 potholes across regional NSW alone. This additional funding will help repair hundreds of thousands more, right across the state.”

A giant pothole in Epping that has been filled with a couch cushion. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

In Greater Sydney, Hawkesbury, Penrith City, Wollondilly Shire and Northern Beaches are among the most severely impacted councils while in the bush, roads in Lithgow, Bathurst, Parkes and Forbes were destroyed by flooding.

Metropolitan Roads Minister Natalie Ward said the government was also investing in new technology to repair potholes faster.

“On state-owned roads across Greater Sydney, the equivalent of standard football fields 139 times over have been repaired already and this latest funding will mean the potholes on your local street can be repaired by councils,” she said.

“In addition, we are trialling new ways to fix potholes faster with a rapid sealing cold mix product roads and investing in technology that finds potholes before they find you through using vehicles to track and prioritise repairs across our roads.”