Council
26 April, 2022
New plan to prioritise rural road upgrades
Horsham rural roads used for freight, farm machinery and tourism are set to be prioritised for upgrades over the next 10 years.
HORSHAM rural roads used for freight, farm machinery and tourism are set to be prioritised for upgrades over the next 10 years.
Horsham Rural City Council adopted the Rural Road Network Plan at the April 26 meeting which now includes three additional categories, freight, farm machinery and tourism, in the road hierarchy.
The new categories supplement the existing four main categories of roads, link, collector, access and minor.
The total cost to upgrade all roads as indicated in the plan is $20.4M, with a significant overlap with the existing Long Term Capex Plan.
The council also endorsed the approach proposed for incorporation of the Plan’s recommendations into the Long Term Capex Plan, reviewed specific proposals for the first year of works under this plan in the 2023-2024 budget process and voted to undertake specific local consultation to confirm the recommended routes for an upgrade.
Councillor Les Power said it was good to see money set aside for improvements to be done on rural roads.
“We need good roads, there’s no doubt about that, whether it be travelling on the highway from Melbourne to Adelaide, or whether we need to go to Mount Zero or whether we need to go down the back way to Hamilton via the Henty Highway or other roads in between,” he said.
Cr Di Bell said she was pleased to see the three categories for freight, farm machinery and tourism included in the new plan.
“I’m pleased to see that we are going to be undertaking local consultation to help to prioritise which roads will be done,” she said.
For freight routes, $16.8M is expected to be needed to meet the standard of at least a 3.7 metre sealed surface, $12.9M of which is set under the Long Term Capex Plan.
The cost of upgrades to farm machinery routes is predicted to be $2.9M to create a network of all-weather roads with wider vegetation clearance.
For tourism routes, the upgrades are predicted to cost $581,554 to have the roads upgraded with a 3.7 metre wide lower-cost Otta seal.
Instead of chip stone, Otta seals use a mixture of gravel and crushed rock placed on a thick film of soft bitumen and then rolled, which is set to reduce maintenance costs of roads used by less than 200 cars per day.
Cr Bell said she was concerned about the level of priority placed on tourism and also the commitment to the upgrades over the next 10 years.
I am concerned to read that the treatment of Otta seal will remove the insurance limitations precluding hire cars so it will be focused on the tourism roads,” she said.
“I am concerned we are going to focus on tourism roads when we’ve got ratepayers who are wrecking suspensions on roads to get to their homes, I’m not sure how we rate tourists ahead of our ratepayers getting to their homes.”
Read more: Barber and Carberry win ANZAC honours
Cr Bell said the report stated it was reasonable that those roads are not projected to be upgraded in the next 10 years.
“An informed decision will need to be made about the level of upgrading versus renewal of the existing road network,” she said.
“It is not proposed that the full list of upgrades would be achieved within 10 years.
“Ten years is a long time if your roads are not good, I’d like us to discuss that further at some stage.”
Each road segment proposed to be upgraded in the plan scored to evaluate its priority for works based on road hierarchy level, the percentage of time it was used for freight usage, if it was farm machinery or tourism route, and the traffic volume.
Cr Ian Ross said some of the municipality’s roads were in poor condition.
“Having a rural road plan is a great step forward,” he said.
“By prioritising the changes we make, hopefully, we will work towards having the whole municipality covered with better quality roads.”