$3.5 million roads boost

Narrabri Shire Council will receive a multimillion-dollar boost to fix roads damaged in last year’s flood events.

This week, the NSW government announced additional support to local government areas across the state to the tune of $500 million as a continuation of financial support following disastrous major flooding which wreaked havoc across the state.

Narrabri Shire is expected to receive almost $3.5 million, substantially more than the $739,000 announced last year in the first tranche of funding in the Regional and Local Roads Repair program.

Narrabri Shire mayor Ron Campbell welcomed the additional support.

“We first received $1 million last year, then the $739,000 and now this $3.5 million. This is a big injection of emergency funds,” Cr Campbell told The Courier.

“This enables us to continue the good work our staff are doing.”

Cr Campbell praised council staff for quickly stepping up to start the long task of fixing the shire’s damaged, extensive road network.

Cr Campbell said council workers had received positive feedback about how quickly they had been fixing up roads.

He said council had declared its own roads emergency internally and that staff were informed that it would take weekends and overtime for the mammoth task of road repairs.

“Everyone has risen to the challenge,” he said of council staff.

“We have several council graders out there, plus contract graders and the patching works … there is plenty of work going on.

“Our staff are going hard and fast.”

Cr Campbell said the dry weather had enabled staff to continue to make progress.

While the $3.5 million is a welcome boost, Cr Campbell said more funding is needed to fix what is an estimated damage bill of $20 million to shire roads.

Even if council received substantially more funding, Cr Campbell said the nature of the works and the amount of damage means repairs will likely span an extensive amount of time.

Cr Campbell said continued assessments and documentation of roads was taking place to ensure council can seek emergency funds.

Last week, council announced crews had been carrying out heavy patching work on Yarrie Lake Road, to fix pavement damage as a result of significant flooding.

Repair works were recently completed on Turrawan Road, enabling it to reopen to motorists.

Parts of Turrawan Road were washed away as a result of flooding, with remnants of the damage still visible for people to see.

Following Tuesday’s funding announcement, Premier Dominic Perrottet said the new Regional and Local Roads Repair program would provide even more support for councils to continue

to carry out urgent repair work to ensure people stay connected and safe.

“We have listened to councils and we understand the pressure they are under from many months of wet weather. This funding boost will help councils continue the huge job of bringing roads back up to scratch to keep our state moving,” Mr Perrottet said.

“We are making sure our roads are in the best nick possible so NSW families, truckies, farmers and tradies can travel around our state safely.

“We recognise potholes are a major hazard right now. This critical funding injection will help every council across the state patch up potholes as well as carry out other emergency repair work.”

Deputy Premier and Minister for Regional NSW Paul Toole said the road network had been battered, with hundreds of thousands of potholes opening up across the state and some roads washed away by landslips.

“Families who hit the road during Christmas would have seen firsthand the scale of the damage caused by last year’s flooding and rain,” Mr Toole said.

“This $500 million boost is on top of the $50 million already provided by the Liberals and Nationals Government to help regional councils carry out emergency pothole repairs. We always said there would be more support on the way and today we are delivering on that.

“Since the February floods we have repaired more than 170,000 potholes across regional NSW alone. This additional funding will help repair hundreds of thousands more, right across the state.”

Minister for Regional Transport and Roads Sam Farraway said the application process will be simple and the cash will be available immediately so councils can get on with the job of urgently restoring the state’s road network.

“The new funding will start landing in councils’ bank accounts within weeks so work can begin rightaway on repairing the essential roads locals, tourists and freight operators use every day,” Mr Farraway said.