Regional leaders say government funding is $148m short of goal

The funding falls $148 million short of the yearly spend Regional Cities Victoria is requesting and is only a one-off sum.

The RCV announced in April that it would campaign for a $2 billion package to be delivered over four years to address deteriorating regional roads.

Despite an increase in road repairs, GV RoadSafe member Des Callaghan remains unimpressed.

“It certainly hasn’t got better,” he said.

“All of a sudden it’s election time and they’re throwing out money like there’s no tomorrow.”

RCV chair Ben Blain said the funding announcement was “a long overdue acknowledgement by the Victorian Government that the condition of our road network is simply not good enough”.

Mr Blain said chronic underinvestment had left too many roads in need of rebuilding, not just temporary repairs.

During a media conference at GV Health, Rural and Regional Development Minister Michaela Settle said that recent wet weather had prevented some of the planned road maintenance works, and real fixes would “need to wait for dry weather”.

The funding announcement said “most of the potholes will be removed over the second half of this year and into January, when it’s driest”.

When challenged on how regional roads ended up in their current conditions under her party’s governance, Ms Settle acknowledged the deterioration and said she was pleased with the actions being taken.

Ms Settle said roads maintenance needed to be brought “back in house”.

“It’s not good enough,” she said.

In response to the RCV’s criticism, Ms Settle said “we will be looking in the long term at the maintenance budget”.

Mr Callaghan pointed out that the deterioration of regional roads happened under Labor governments.

“Get on with it and fix them,” he said.