Regional roads crisis: $105 million allocated to fix flood-damaged roads

$105 million has been pledged for critical regional road repairs, after summer floods wreaked havoc throughout Victoria but industry leaders say it’s still not enough.

Regional Victorian roads badly damaged in major summer floods have attracted $105 million to repair them.

The worst affected roads, bridges and culverts will be “rebuilt and repaired” with the cash made jointly available by the Victorian and federal governments last week.

Areas hit hardest by flooding included Gippsland, Hume, Loddon and Mallee.

It follows calls last month from Victoria’s shadow minister for roads Danny O’Brien for the $165 million allocated after the 2022 floods to be replicated.

“What were previously considered once in a generation flood events are now commonplace, bringing record rainfall and inflicting unprecedented damage on our roads, which is why we’re now delivering road maintenance as part of a $6.6 billion, 10-year strategy, allowing us to plan long-term and future-proofing regional roads,” a Victorian Government spokesman said.

Victorian shadow roads minister Danny O'Brien. Picture: Supplied

But Mr O’Brien said the state was being short-changed again with the allocation being standard funding activated for emergency works after a natural disaster and not a new, designated roads package.

“Our roads were in a dire state before this season and at best the funding will only get them back to where they were,” he said.

“After a 45 per cent cut in road maintenance funding since 2020, our roads are suffering from tens of thousands of potholes, rough surfaces, cracking, rutting and broken shoulders.

“The $165 million allocated by the government after the October 2022 floods barely scratched the surface but we need at least that money again to begin much needed repair of our roads.”

The South Gippsland Highway at Stony Creek is under a temporary speed restriction. Picture: Supplied

The Department of Transport has confirmed there were 784 kilometres of roads across 480 locations in regional Victoria that were subject to a “pavement in poor condition management plan” on October 30 last year.

These roads have either condition-based speed limit reductions or advanced warnings of rough road signage.

The government did not respond to The Weekly Times’ request for a revised figure of how many regional roads were subject to a “pavement in poor condition management plan” following the summer floods.

“If the Labor government spent as much money on fixing the roads as it does on putting up new speed signs, we might get somewhere,” Mr O’Brien said.

“Labor has wasted over $38 billion in cost blowouts on major projects and $600 million in cancelling the Commonwealth Games, but can’t find the money to do basic pavement repairs on our road network.”