Regional councils called to improve Victorian roadworks

Ratepayers are crying out for road maintenance to be done in their local areas. See which councils have the most complained about roads.

Construction crews working in inner Melbourne. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Roads in regional Victoria are in dire need of repair with ratepayers recording satisfaction levels as low as 39 per cent with their condition.

Data from 2020-21 shows the least satisfied ratepayers are in Golden Plains, between Ballarat and Geelong, and Yarriambiack, around Warracknabeal, closely followed by the Southern Grampians.

Ratepayers recorded satisfaction scores of 39, 39 and 40 per cent respectively.

This compares with an average satisfaction score of 51 per cent among similar council areas.

Golden Plains and Yarriambiack reported 80.12 and 32.64 sealed local road requests per 100km respectively and Southern Grampians only 2.85.

While Yarriambiack covers a large regional area – Golden Plains and Southern Grampians are among Victoria’s smaller regional councils.

The lowest scoring metropolitan councils were Yarra Ranges, Cardinia and Mornington Peninsula with an average satisfaction score of 54.33 per cent.

Country motorists had the most gripes about the state of local roads. Picture: Rob Leeson

The three municipalities are Melbourne’s largest and constitute approximately 45 per cent of the total metro council area.

The weakest performers in the inner metro area were Moreland and Hobsons Bay with satisfaction scores of 60 and 61 per cent.

This was significantly lower than similar councils which scored an average of 68 per cent.

The best performers for metro and regional were Monash and Wodonga scoring 75 and 67 per cent satisfaction.

Moreland council was one of the most complained about metro shires.

Outer metro’s strongest councils were Frankston and Greater Dandenong with 70 per cent satisfaction each.

On average the metro councils scored approximately 10 per cent higher in road satisfaction than their regional counterparts which collectively cover 95.61 per cent of the state.

Southern Grampians Shire Council Director of Infrastructure Marg Scanlon said that “council will be seeking to improve these statistics in the near future.”

No response was received from Yarriambiack and Golden Plains declined to comment.

Acting Mayor of Moreland Lambros Tapinos told the Herald Sun “we have more than quadrupled our road resurfacing budget this financial year.”

No response was received from Hobsons Bay Council.

Ratepayers Victoria spokesperson Verity Webb says that councils aren’t coping with the workload put on them by the state government.

“When MPs pass this legislation, they don’t give a rats” she said.

Ms Webb also believes that part of the problem is the power held by council CEOs.

“Local MPs have given council CEOs omnipotent powers to do whatever they want. If rubbish collection is slack, and local roads are full of potholes, state MPs and the council CEOs are the ones to blame.”