SOUTH-west roads campaigner Jodi Fry is warning the regional Roads to Ruin community campaign will be resurrected if the Labor government does not follow through on road funding commitments made by the previous Coalition government.
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Mrs Fry, who runs a Broadwater livestock transport company with her husband Trevor, said she was concerned the Andrews Labor government had given no indication it would reaffirm the former Coalition’s funding commitments to the Condah-Hotspur Upper Road and the Myamyn to Macarthur Road.
Both roads were in “atrocious” condition, she said.
She was also concerned about whether the Labor government would upgrade the Woolsthorpe-Heywood Road to a C class road as promised by the former Coalition government.
Mrs Fry said she had taken roads minister Luke Donnellan for a trip in a fully-loaded milk tanker on the Woolsthorpe-Heywood Road in 2012 when he was in opposition so he could get a first-hand feel of driving of the region’s potholed roads.
She would be disgusted if Mr Donnellan turned out to be “all talk” and walked away from the former government’s commitment to lift the road to class C standard, she said.
Member for South-West Coast Denis Napthine last week called on Mr Donnellan to guarantee that the $2.6 million allocated by the former Coalition government for the Myamyn-Macarthur Road would be spent on the road.
Dr Napthine said 13 kilometres of the 24-kilometre road, which runs from the Henty Highway to the Hamilton-Port Fairy Road, was a single lane of bitumen and was in a poor and dangerous condition.
However a media spokeswoman for Mr Donnellan this week gave no indication of any specific funding commitment to the road in the forthcoming state budget.
The spokeswoman said a temporary 80 kilometres an hour speed zone was last month introduced along a six-kilometre section of the Myamyn-Macarthur Road.
“The government is committed to improving safety on regional roads, that’s why we are spending $1 billion to upgrade roads in regional communities, as outlined in Project 10,000,” she said.
However Dr Napthine said Labor’s $1 billion commitment was over eight years, meaning VicRoads was likely to receive only $125 million a year to maintain country roads.
The $125 million a year was a massive $375 million cut from the $500 million that the former Coalition government allocated in the 2014-2015 state budget, he said.
Dr Napthine said the cut to VicRoads’ repairs and maintenance budget came on top of the Labor government’s decision to scrap the four-year $160 million country roads and bridges program. The cuts would leave local councils to fill the gap at the same time as they were facing a state government cap on their rates.