Council
18 October, 2024
Too little too late
THIS week’s state government announcement of a $675 million regional road maintenance allocation is “too little, too late” according to Roma Britnell.
The Member for South West Coast spoke out this week, following Monday morning’s announcement, saying she felt it was an insult to Victorians.
“This simply re-announces existing maintenance funding which was allocated in the 2024-25 budget,” Ms Britnell said.
“The $675 million figure for regional road maintenance, as part of the $964 million “blitz”, is also still 16 per cent less than it was in 2020.”
Ms Britnell said she had raised concerns about the “woeful” state of our roads in parliament on numerous occasions.
“This announcement is too little, too late; it attempts to mask reduced spending and neglect of our roads, which has led to deterioration at a dangerous level,” she said.
“Cuts to the maintenance budget in recent years have led to dramatic deterioration of our roads which are riddled with potholes, rutted, cracked and breaking up right across the state.”
She added that having raised the state of local roads, such as the Princes Highway at Illowa, in parliament she was relieved to see that it had been included for works.
“The government has persistently blamed major flooding over the last two years for worsening conditions on Victoria’s roads. That’s a complete cop out.
“Successive years of budget cuts have left our roads in a dire state.”
