March 18, 2020
South Burnett Regional Council has received $1.2 million in Disaster Recovery Funding to help road recovery work after flooding in February.
Roads portfolio holder Gavin Jones told Wednesday’s Council meeting February’s storms had caused $1.2 million worth of damage across the region’s road network.
He said Council would now be funded by the State and Federal governments to make these repairs, rather than dipping into ratepayers’ pockets.
Cr Jones said the people posting photos and videos on Facebook didn’t understand that if Council had moved to fix this flood damage earlier, ratepayers would have picked up the cost.
By successfully applying for funding, ratepayers had received a $1.2 million “bonus”.
“We can start working now with the State Government to prioritise the roads that need fixing,” he said.
Cr Jones also said most of the damage he had seen in the social media posts was in the gutters of the roads.
“Prior to this work that we started a couple of years ago … (the damage) used to be down the middle of the road,” he said.
“The work we have done on these roads is now is forcing the water off the roads into the gutters, where it should be.”
He admitted more work needed to be done on the gutters and tabledrains, but said this work was “in progress”.
“I always said it would be a four or five-year turnaround before we had the road network in a good condition,” Cr Jones said.
The meeting also heard that $225,000 in grants had been received to provide parking outside Wheatlands State School, and to change the pedestrian crossings outside Murgon’s schools.
Cr Jones said the State Government was also spending $24 million on upgrading the highway between Kingaroy and Nanango.
A bus parking upgrade project at Coolabunia State School had also recently been completed.
Council was awaiting approval from the Department of Transport and Main Roads before beginning work on the realignment of the Maidenwell-Bunya Mountains Road at the Wengenville-Glencliffe Road intersection.
Cr Jones said Council was also still trying to get the funding to complete the rest of the Bunya Mountains Road upgrade.
“Anybody who wants to give me a call in regards to their roads, please ring me – I’m happy to talk to anybody – rather than put stuff up on Facebook,” Cr Jones said.
“That achieves nothing.”
[UPDATED with correction]
