By Max Maddison
Repairing the state’s road network to a safe standard will cost governments nearly $3 billion after two years of heavy rains, with Sydney councils needing $470 million to bridge the funding gap.
The NRMA’s annual financial assessment of regional and metropolitan councils outlined a near 14 per cent, or $56 million, jump in metro councils’ funding shortfall in 2022-23, with Bayside, Canterbury-Bankstown, Ku-ring-gai and Sydney all experiencing sizeable increases.
The situation was more dire across regional councils, as the infrastructure bill increased by nearly 8 per cent to $2.4 billion. The aggregate cost was $2.8 billion, prompting the NRMA to call on the federal and state governments to provide councils with a funding injection to ensure roads remained safe.
The Sydney council with the largest funding shortfall was Canterbury-Bankstown, which increased by 87 per cent to almost $75 million. City of Sydney’s funding shortfall soared by 35 per cent to $29 million, after enduring a 97 per cent increase in 2021-22.
Bayside Council, in Sydney’s inner south, saw its backlog increase by 194 per cent in 2022-23 to nearly $10 million.
Waverley, Woollahra and Burwood, however, made significant headway into reducing their infrastructure shortfall over the last financial year, with the latter council cutting the backlog from more than $8 million to almost zero.
‘We have disparate funding programs at a federal and state level with falling revenues leaving many regional councils disadvantaged.’
Peter Khoury, NRMA
NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury said the state’s roads had been hammered over the past 18 months with record levels of rainfall. He also noted the 20 per cent increase in the road toll and called for significant funding support for councils.
“Councils – in particular regional and outer Sydney councils – do the lion’s share of road maintenance in NSW and the NRMA wants them to receive the necessary funding to keep our road network at a safe standard,” Khoury said.
“We have disparate funding programs at a federal and state level with falling revenues leaving many regional councils disadvantaged – this obviously needs to change.”
In regional NSW, MidCoast Council saw its infrastructure backlog leap by more than 201 per cent to 191 million. Clarence Valley Council, which extends from Yamba down inland past Coffs Harbour, had the second-biggest backlog, at nearly $270 million, a 3.4 per cent increase from the previous year.
The NRMA says the state’s roads have been hammered over the past 18 months.Credit: James Alcock
Despite reducing its roads bill by over 12 per cent, the Northern Rivers Joint Organisation of councils retained the largest infrastructure backlog of $419 million.
A NSW government spokesman said in addition to the $500 million allocated last year to repair the state’s road network damaged in the 2022 floods, an additional $390 million was handed to councils in the 2023-24 budget.
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