Noticing more potholes? Victoria’s roads are about to get even worse

Repair works on Victoria’s deteriorating roads have been slashed to a third of what was done last year, as experts warning the rapid increase in potholes is only going to get worse.

Potholes on roads across Victoria are set to get worse with the debt-riddled Allan Government slashing resurfacing and rehabilitation works to a third of what was being fixed three years ago.

Data released in performance reports linked to the May budget have revealed the shockingly low amount of rehabilitation work that will be carried out across regional Victoria and metropolitan Melbourne.

It has prompted experts to warn motorists they will see massive deterioration across the road network.

Potholes on Victoria’s roads are set to get a whole lot worse.

The damning figures show that resurfacing works for the next 12 months had plummeted by more than 65 per cent on regional road, and 25 per cent in metropolitan Melbourne, in just three years.

This meant that nine million sqm of roads was being treated to fix and protect against rain and potholes in regional Victoria in 2022-23, but has now dropped by two thirds to 3.1 million sqm, in this year’s budget.

On Melbourne suburban roads works 729,000 sqm of works were done in 2022-23 compared to 542,000 sqm budgeted for 2024-25.

A pothole on Warrigal Rd, Burwood.

And another on Thacker St, Ocean Grove.

Justin Bartlett, managing director of VSA Roads – regional Victoria’s largest supplier of quarried bitumen – said the constant under spend was now seeing the state’s roads deteriorate at an alarming rate.

“It’s dramatic,” he said.

“The whole resurfacing industry in regional Victoria has been decimated.

“There’s a life cycle of bitumen and after 10 years it becomes aged and brittle and starts to crack and if your not resurfacing, water gets in and potholes occurs.

“The pothole becomes a digout, and then it's a full rehabilitation and we’re back to square one.

“The one thing you don’t cut back on is the percentage of roads being resurfaced because otherwise you have an exponential spend down the track.”

He warned roads will continue to deteriorate with every rain event because they are “no longer resilient”.

“We’ve already seen an exponential increase in potholes and its only going to get worse,” he told the Herald Sun.

Experts warn the under spend on road repair works meant Victoria’s roads were deteriorating at an alarming rate. Picture: Mark Wilson

He also lashed out at the government’s new much-hyped 10-year plan saying the government was spinning the numbers.

“It’s just nonsense. You take a number and times it over 10 years to make it sound like a big number. They say we are spending $6.6bn, but in reality that’s far less than they’ve spent in the past.”

Nationals MP Danny O’Brien lashed out at the government saying that “Victorian motorists are paying the price” for the Labor Government’s mismanagement of road maintenance.

“The cuts to the maintenance budget in recent years have led to dramatic deterioration of our roads – they are pot-holed, rutted, cracked and breaking up right across the state.

“These savage reductions in the resurfacing program in recent years mean we’ll likely just see worse roads in future because the critical preventive maintenance is not being done.

“Our cars have to be roadworthy but it seems the government isn’t interested in making our roads car-worthy.”

A Victorian Government spokesman blamed floods, not funding, for the significant damage to Victoria’s road network.

“Repeated flooding and above-average rainfall caused unprecedented damage to our roads which meant our maintenance program needed to focus on rebuilding damaged roads last year – simply resurfacing these roads would not have prevented further degradation.”

“Now this work to rebuild flooded roads is complete, resurfacing levels will significantly increase during the upcoming maintenance season.”

“We’ll continue this important work investing $964m into maintaining our roads in this year alone – far exceeding the yearly average of $493m under the previous Liberal National Government.”