Blue Mountains News

The NRMA has just released its Council Backlog report which highlights the significance of the road renewal and repair backlog in metropolitan and regional NSW. While unsurprising, the findings are a clear indication that NSW must spotlight this issue and do better.

“Lithgow City Council continues to grapple with the impacts of almost a dozen natural disasters over the past 7 years, many of which occurred consecutively, and some of which overlapped,” said Lithgow City Council’s Mayor, Councillor Cassandra Coleman“ We have quantified our own road repair backlog at $88 million. We are considering strategies to respond to this, with the first being our largest ever renewal program of $16 million being programmed for 2025/26. But still, over the next 6 years, Lithgow is $20 million short of what it needs to meet this challenge.

”“What has shocked me about this report is the nature of these findings,” continued Mayor Coleman. “In 2017/18, the backlog was nearly $2 billion. On average, that state-wide backlog has risen by $200 million per year. Council now find themselves in the position of needing to fund $3.4 billion to simply provide an acceptable level of service to their citizens. Moreover, the backlog of repairs in metropolitan areas are between one third (in 2017/18) and one quarter (in 2023/24) of those in regional areas.”

“In my mind, this is painting a clear picture of a fundamentally broken system. Why has the renewal deficit been allowed to climb for these past seven years without a change in approach? Why has the service gap between metropolitan and regional areas been allowed to continue growing? The situation NSW finds itself in today is shameful. At this rate, where will we be in 2030? Continuing on this path is unacceptable.”

“Lithgow joins the NRMA, and other Regional NSW Mayors, in calling for urgent, immediate action,” said Mayor Coleman. “The NSW Government, and newly elected Australian Government, must work with local government to address the following needs:

1. Urgently develop a statewide, collaborative, long-term, and evidence-based strategy together with an effective funding plan for the NSW road network.
2. Amalgamate disparate road funding sources into one sustainable funding stream that is not competitive, resilient to politics, and offers Councils the capacity to factor these revenues into their long-term financial plans.
3. Methods of funding distribution need to be reconsidered to see greater shares of revenue dispersed to those areas that provide real services. Initially, Financial Assistance Grants, funded by Commonwealth taxation revenue, must be restored to 1% rather than the 0.5% they are set at today.
4. The equity of funding allocations must consider measures other than a simple calculation of road length. Better measures of ‘capacity to pay’ need to be developed to close the gap between metro and regional areas.
5. The Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements are not fit for purpose and have served to further entrench regional disadvantage. A review and overhaul of these guidelines is required to encourage betterment and resilience, subject to relatively simple merit-based assessments.

Road transport supports every aspect of our daily lives. Lithgow stands ready to work with the NSW and Australian Governments to meet these clear needs of today’s population, but also future generations.”

The complete NRMA Council Backlog report can be found here