News, Road upgrades, Victoria

$964 million road spend ‘blitz’ follows controversy

A $964 million regional roads blitz has been announced for Victoria as concerns mount over the closure of the state’s Regional Roads Victoria (RRV) agency.

RRV was established by former Premier Daniel Andrews in the lead-up to the 2018 state election, but it quietly disappeared recently – with its website gone and phone number disconnected.

This comes as rumours swirl around the potential sale of government owned SprayLine Road Services (SRS), which is tasked with maintaining roads across various areas of Victoria.

Nationals leader Peter Walsh has slammed the closure of Regional Roads Victoria. Image: Peter Walsh MP

Nationals leader and Member for Murray Plains, Peter Walsh, has slammed the move to dismantle RRV, calling it “utter contempt and disregard for the problems facing regional and rural Victorians”.

This follows a survey earlier in the year, conducted by the National Transport Research Organisation that claimed that 91 per cent of the 8400km Victorian road network was deemed to be in poor or very poor condition.

Walsh has accused the government of being “hellbent on blowing the budget in ridiculous big build projects going nowhere in Melbourne”.

He said, “This latest blow means the deterioration of regional roads will only accelerate.

“Everyone living outside Melbourne knows how bad our road network is, knows how dangerous it is becoming and is now paying the price of new tyres, constant realignments, replacing windscreens as stone and bitumen is flung up from collapsing edges on roads and all while having to slalom down roads to try and avoid the really bad damage.”

On October 14 however, the state government announced its new $964 million road maintenance package. Of that sum, around 70 per cent will go towards roads in regional Victoria.

The state government is touting it as “the largest single-year investment in road maintenance in the state’s history”.

The news was announced at the South Geelong depot of Fulton Hogan, one of the contractors that will deliver these works between now and mid-2025.

The spend will go towards road rehabilitation and resurfacing, patching potholes and maintaining bridges, traffic lights, signage and road infrastructure.

The state government says it will target the state’s busiest travel and freight routes, with works set to take place on the Hume Freeway, Princes Highway, Western Highway, Goulburn Valley Highway and Echuca-Mooroopna Road.

Other roads set to be repaired include Terang-Mortlake Road, Mornington-Flinders Road, Horsham-Kalkee Road and Tylden-Woodend Road.

The package of works also includes flood recovery works, with priority given to repairing regional Victoria’s flood-damaged roads. The final list of flood recovery projects will be confirmed in coming months.

In announcing the funding, Minister for Roads and Road Safety Melissa Horne said, “We’re investing nearly a billion dollars to rebuild and repair the roads that Victorians depend on every single day – from the highways connecting our major centres to the local roads that keep our communities moving.”

But the news follows funding to resurface roads being absolutely slashed, to just $37.6m this year – down from $201.4m in 2023.

The big spending blitz also sees some areas in desperate need of road repairs appearing to have missed out on a slice of the pie, including Wodonga.

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