Regional roads: Towong Shire mayor extends offer to Premier to inspect his poor roads

Premier Jacinta Allan has been invited to a small rural council area experiencing big roads problems for more than a decade.

The mayor of one of the state’s smallest rural councils with big road problems dating back more than a decade has offered to take Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan on a personal tour of them.

Cr Andrew Whitehead said the Murray River Rd was the worst in Towong Shire with “old wire guard rails with timber posts that have either rotted out or fallen over years ago”.

His offer to inspect his council’s roads follows comments this week by Ms Allan that many of the problems with the state’s roads were from recent severe weather events and not a lack of maintenance.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan. Picture: NewsWire/Ian Currie

She told 3AW that many of the “potholes and challenges come from the big flooding events we’ve had in the last couple of years”.

But Cr Whitehead said issues in his council, where agriculture is the major industry, predated Labor’s return to power in Victoria in 2014 and would “definitely” be keen to have the Premier visit.

“There hasn’t been enough money going into regional roads for a lot of years,” he said.

“The Murray River Rd has been needing some attention for a long while.

“It has had frequent accidents and unfortunately there have been a few deaths.

“There are definitely things caused by years of wet weather and floods.

“But there are things that have been ongoing for longer than Labor has been in government.

“I’ve had people saying lately ‘for many years you used to know when you drove from Victoria into NSW the roads became crap’.

“Now it tends to be the other way round.”

Roads in Ms Allan’s Bendigo East electorate did suffer major flood damage 12 months.

“I spend a lot of time driving around Victoria, particularly in regional Victoria, given I live in Bendigo,” she said.

“One of things I also see are the crews out there working on the road maintenance program right now.

“It’s a big road network and we are spending and investing $964 million.”

Towong Shire mayor Andrew Whitehead said his council has been battling poor roads for more than a decade.

But Victorian Nationals leader and Coalition roads and road safety spokesman Danny O’Brien said the government was treating Victorians “like fools by constantly blaming the condition of our roads on ‘repeated flooding’ and ‘unprecedented rainfall’.

“Our roads are crumbling due to funding cuts and neglect – not freak weather events,” he said.

“State budget papers indicate the area of road subject to resurfacing or rehabilitation fell 95 per cent last financial year and that’s having a compounding impact on roads that were already poor.

“Labor can’t manage money and it’s Victorian motorists who are paying the price.”

Originally published as Regional roads: Towong Shire mayor extends offer to Premier to inspect his poor roads