(Photo: SBRC)
July 16, 2015
Roads Portfolio chair Cr Damien Tessmann slammed into the State Government this week over inadequate road funding.
Cr Tessmann told fellow Councillors at Wednesday’s SBRC meeting that while state road network maintenance is currently being carried out by councils under State Government contracts, there has been no increase in funding for this work since 2008.
Because of this, the State’s road network is gradually getting run down and only the highest priority issues are being addressed.
To make matters worse, councils which overspend their contracted amounts are now being told any overspends will come out of next year’s allocation, which only makes the situation worse.
He said he’d raised these problems with the Director-General of the Department of Transport and Main Roads at a recent meeting in Bundaberg, and was advised to wait for this year’s State Budget to see if the problems would be addressed.
In the meantime, the South Burnett Regional Council has nominated its Top 10 state road funding priorities to the State Government.
In order, they are:
- Taylors Road-Meiers Road intersection on the Bunya Highway
- Chinchilla-Wondai Road intersection with the Bunya Highway
- Coolabunia Road and D’Aguilar Highway intersection
- Rogers Drive and D’Aguilar Highway intersection
- Maidenwell Bunya Mountains Road realignment and sealing
- Kingaroy Barkers Creek Road widening from the Burnett Highway to Wattlecamp Road
- Memerambi Gordonbrook Road widening from the Bunya Highway to Stuart River
- Mundubera-Durong Road widening from Boondooma Creek to the North Burnett Regional Council boundary
- Proston-Boondooma Road realignment and widening to a 25m B-double standard, and upgrading the Stuart River bridge and approaches
- Byee Road widening from the Wondai-Proston Road to Silverleaf Road
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An upgrade to a section of Kingaroy’s Markwell Street which was begun by the South Burnett Regional Council in early April will near completion this Friday, July 17.
Cr Tessmann told Wednesday’s SBRC meeting that the first coat of 45mm asphalt will go down this week, which will allow the Council to re-open both sides of the street.
Cr Tessmann said that the upgrade had taken longer than planned because the street’s subsoil turned out to be much wetter than anticipated.
This had to be allowed to dry out before work could proceed.
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A new overtaking lane on the Bunya Highway north of Wooroolin opened earlier this week.
The new section of highway has been linemarked and has had the first coat of seal applied.
A second, final seal will be applied when the temperature is warmer.
Work on the $1.9 million, one kilometre-long passing lane began in September last year.
However the project was delayed when an endangered plant was uncovered during the initial construction phase and had to be moved to a new location.
The project was paid for by the State Government, but the work was carried out by SBRC staff.
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Work on the Nanango streetscape is proceeding steadily, with half of the Drayton and Fitzroy Street corners now complete and the remaining two expected to be completed within the next four weeks, Cr Damien Tessmann said.
After this, work will begin on building a roundabout in the centre of the intersection.
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The sealing of an unsealed section of Semgreen’s Road at Coolabunia has taken longer than expected because of soggy soils.
Two layers of gravel road base have now been laid, though, and the road will soon reopen to traffic at night when construction crews aren’t working.
Final sealing should be applied next week, after which the road will return to normal.
