Association calls for more funding after study finds 10 per cent of roads in need of upgrading.
The Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) says it needs more funding and stronger policy support from commonwealth, state and territory governments to sufficiently maintain the deteriorating local road network.
The recommendations are based on data obtained from the ALGA’s recently released 2014 National State of the Assets report for local road infrastructure, which found that 10 per cent of local roads are in either a poor or very poor state.
The findings come from the 396 participating councils that collectively manage $104.8 billion in transport assets.
The combined value of local roads infrastructure that is classed as either poor or very poor is $11.7 billion, $8.8 billion of which comes from sealed roads.
ALGA president Troy Pickard says that the report “highlights the scale of the current under-investment in local roads.”
The report says that the 10 per cent figure is “unacceptably high” from the perspective of local governments, and makes a number of recommendations to rectify the problem.
The report recommends requiring consistent reporting from local councils, building on the State of the Assets report, and a coordinated, whole of government approach to infrastructure management.
“Funding programs like Roads to Recovery were, and are, not enough to reverse the general deterioration,” the report says.
Pickard says he will be seeking meetings with federal treasurer Joe Hockey to highlight the need for increased investment in local roads.
“Local roads are a critical part of the nation’s infrastructure that contribute significantly to national productivity by linking points of production, processing and export,” Pickard says.
“All sectors in the Australian economy including agriculture, manufacturing, mining and tourism benefit from a strong and well managed local roads network.
“Almost every journey generally begins and ends on a local roads and communities directly benefit from increasing the expenditure on local roads.”