A road condition survey carried out by Cumberland Council soon after the last storm in June, found that in the short term approximately $6.5m would be required to undertake permanent pavement patching and pothole repairs.
A council report stated that the “rapid deterioration of pavement due to these wet weather events pose a safety risk and a high cost to the road users. Without immediate intervention by undertaking additional road repairs, the cost to the community will only increase in future years”.
With that in mind, the council decided to inject $6.5 million to undertake road repairs, “ensuring residents have access to high quality infrastructure that is in satisfactory condition”.
Deputy Mayor Suman Saha says the repairs are urgently needed with the poor condition of many roads making them a safety risk.
“If we don’t fix them now the costs to the community will keep increasing, as will the council’s maintenance costs,” he said.
“We need to bring roads up to a satisfactory level.”
Cr Eddy Sarkis says the roads are the worst he has seen them in the last 20 years.
“Our roads are in a shocking state – they haven’t been given the priority the should have,” he said.
Cr Paul Garrard says the community is concerned about the state of the road network.
“Even before (the storms) the road network was shot, there is kilometre after kilometre of roads that need to be resurfaced,” he said.
The council will also explore different technologies to extend the life of roads.
Road repair blitz
MORE than $6 million will be spent on repairing the “shocking state” of many local roads which were severely damaged during violent storms earlier this year.