That is Greater Hume mayor Heather Wilton’s stark assessment of the shire’s deteriorating road network.

“I hope that the people can respect that we’ve done a lot of hard work on it and this will be one way of improving some of our roads,” she said of the council’s bid for a special rate variation.

Cr Wilton said the council would need to get back to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal by the end of the year if it wanted to get approval in time for next year’s budgetary process, which got into full swing about February-March.

“That’s if we can get that community support,” she said.

Cr Wilton said the council was having to work in a climate of ever-declining state and federal government funding options.

“And then there’s the expectations of people,” she said.

“Rate pegging really severely hampers how we can operate and how we can best deliver for the people.

“Certain things we can have reasonable charges levied, like on water and sewer and garbage, so that covers the cost of doing business.”

Cr Wilton said the council was already running “a pretty lean job”.

“But rates don’t cover all the other infrastructure that we have to deal with,” she said.

“We’ve tightened our belt as much as we can, we’ve looked at every aspect of our business and we are still doing that to ensure we’ve got as streamlined a business as we can make it.”

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