GREATER Hume Council’s $84 million roadworks backlog is a worrying statistic, not just for its ratepayers, but for all the state’s residents.
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The figure, released by NRMA director Graham Blight during a visit to the region yesterday, is the largest shortfall for a southern NSW council.
It obviously is an insurmountable problem for a council that has an annual income of $30 million, of which $7 million is earmarked for roads.
That places the council in an indefinite game of catch-up that it can’t win.
Indeed, it is inevitable the gulf between programs and the shortfall will widen further as work on other shire roads falls due.
And Mr Blight didn’t paint a pretty picture for the rest of the state, either, describing the roads-funding shortfall as a “tsunami” that continues to build.
He said state and federal governments must step in to assist councils such as Greater Hume or they will be forced to confront the unpalatable but only alternative of increasing rates.
But Mr Blight controversially suggested the fuel excise, initially introduced with the sole purpose of funding roads, should be scrapped if a pay-as-you-go road tax is introduced.
Neither seem likely to happen.