The NRMA has revealed a $1.9 billion backlog of funding needed by NSW councils to maintain local roads with the figure expected to blow out further this year due to flooding, as the organisation launches its Rate Your Road survey.
The Fix Our Broken Roads report identified a $1.9 billion backlog of funding needed by the state’s 128 councils in 2020/21 to maintain roads to a safe standard.
Early indications suggest the 2022 figures will dwarf the $1.9 billion total as councils begin to report the extent of damage caused by the heavy flooding that has devastated the state’s road network over the last 12 months.
The regional backlog in 2020/21 was $1.5 billion. Worryingly, the 2021/22 backlog is already at $1.1 billion with only 60% of regional councils reporting so far.
The NRMA has released the funding backlog report on the same day it launches its renowned Rate Your Road survey, with the organisation calling on NSW and ACT residents to vote for their worst – and best – roads, by visiting rateyourroad.com.au.
Voting is easy and takes only a couple of minutes. The survey is accessible on smartphones and desktop and voting will remain open until mid-February 2023. The results will be released prior to the March 2023 NSW Election.
The Fix Our Broken Roads report revealed that $1.53 billion of the $1.9 billion backlog was reported by regional councils. Sydney councils reported a $372 million funding deficit.
NRMA spokesperson Peter Khoury said the alarming $1.9 billion deficit in funding needed by the state’s councils for 2020/21 was set to get significantly worse with the true impact of flooding over the last year still being assessed.
“The NRMA has an almighty job on its hands over the next year fighting to get the funding councils need to fix our flood ravaged, potholed littered road network – that’s why we want the community to tell us where the worst roads are through our Rate Your Road survey,” Mr Khoury said.
“It is easy to pinpoint the worst and best performing roads and tell us why. Having your say can make a huge difference – the 2019 survey received a record number of votes and that data helped the NRMA secure record road funding from the NSW and Australian Governments.
“We know from the $1.9 billion existing funding deficit revealed by the NRMA today that things are already bad and will only get worse as the true devastation from the floods is quantified. As a community we need to work together to get councils the funding they need to get the job done.”
The Fix Our Broken Roads report calls for more funding to support councils through a streamlined process, the adoption of new standards and materials when fixing roads to ensure roads are more resilient to damage, and a technology-driven audit of the entire road network to support targeted future upgrades and evidence-based, predictive maintenance.
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