General News
18 June, 2023
Road funds not enough
Funds provided to Mareeba Shire Council to maintain State-controlled roads are just not enough to do the job, say councillors and senior officers.
Funds provided to Mareeba Shire Council to maintain State-controlled roads are just not enough to do the job, say councillors and senior officers.
Describing the annual funding as “terribly inadequate”, works manager Andrew Foster told council the money only allowed unsealed State controlled roads to be graded just once a year.
“That’s it – there no money left after that,” he said.
The Routine Maintenance Performance Contract (RMPC) is struck between Main Roads and councils each year, but there has been concern raised now by both Mareeba Shire and Tablelands Regional Council about the continued reduction of funds allocated to do repairs to the roads.
“The roads, particularly the Burke Development Road (BDR), is subject to extremely heavy transport,” Mr Foster told council.
“We attempt to grade the BDR and have it done by the end of September to give them (trucks) as long as possible to have a reasonable unsealed road but once it starts to pull apart, it pulls apart and there is no additional funding to repair it.
”When council raised the matter with Minister for Main Roads Mark Bailey at Community Cabinet earlier this month, he failed to provide an adequate response.
Mayor Angela Toppin said that in a meeting with Mr Bailey, she advised the funding was “totally insufficient” to maintain state-controlled roads.
Deputy Mayor Kevin Davies said the funding had dropped by 16 per cent since 2016, while costs for materials and staff had gone up.
“Instead of going up, it’s going down. It’s going to be lower again for 2024 – we mentioned this to Mr Bailey and there was a shrug of the shoulders,” Cr Davies told council.
Cr Locky Bensted said council should not be put in a position where ratepayers had to pay to maintain the BDR.
“It’s important to note that this is a State-owned road and we are limited with our fi nancial capacity and we should not expect ratepayers to pay to grade that road,” he said.
He said the Cape had begun to “open up” again and “those roads are really not up to standard but we just simply don’t have the financial ability to do anything about it.”
Mr Foster said not only did council have no say in the amount of funding, it also did not have any say in how maintenance should be done.
As part of the RMPC, during April council work crews did extensive pothole patching on all sealed State-controlled roads. They also cleared several land slips on the Rex Range and other emergent works, not including pothole patching, on the State-controlled network, with a focus on the Mareeba-Dimbulah Road.
