KEMPSEY shire motorists will need to be patient when it comes to road maintenance and pothole repairs on the region's roads.
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At the Kempsey Shire Council meeting on Tuesday, councillors debated whether to allocate money from roads and capital works funds towards fixing potholes faster or to continue with the current timeframe and plan to repair and renew the road network.
In a council workshop about roads maintenance last week, the issue was raised about the time it took for the council to fix or fill-in potholes.
During discussions, councillors asked the general manager if a recommendation could be made to alleviate the problem and presented at this week’s council meeting.
Tuesday’s meeting was told $650,000 could be allocated from roads and capital works funds to purchase equipment and provide a service level of filling potholes on roads carrying over 5000 vehicles per day within the week.
During the debate that went for over an hour, Cr Shields asked if spending $650,000 would alleviate the pothole issue.
“What are we going to get from the outcome and what would be the flow-on effects?” Cr Shields asked.
Cr Morris said there were a lot of problems occurring on regional roads with potholes, and asked Mr Rawlings if fixing potholes was the best way to spend the money.
“I agree we need to increase maintenance, but is this the best way to get the best bang for our buck and how long do we think we’ll need to do this, as in do we see this tapering out or concluding in the long term?” Cr Morris said.
Mr Rawlings said if the council was to spend more money fixing potholes faster, it would be short-term gain, but the Shire would suffer long-term loss.
“We know the road network is going backwards and if we don’t start getting ahead of it, like we are with the current roads and capital works plan, roads will keep degrading faster and faster," he said.
“We can keep throwing money into maintenance but the roads around it will be falling down faster than we can maintain them where we will be patching potholes on top of potholes.”
Cr Patterson agreed with Mr Rawlings and said he would rather continue with renewing the roads rather than fixing potholes faster than the time that it currently takes.
“If we fix the potholes it doesn’t really matter because they will keep on happening,” Cr Patterson said.
“However, if we continue to renew the roads the problem of potholes will get less as time goes on and even though the community will have to put up with pothole repairs taking longer, renewing the roads in the long term is more important.”
At the end of debate, it was agreed not to take $650,000 from roads and capital works funds to fix potholes faster, but to stay with the current roads and capital works plan to invest in renewing the region's roads.