Drawing from community consultation, the City of Ballarat's Draft Budget 2022/23 has a strong focus on road infrastructure.
In November, the City of Ballarat asked residents to prioritise the Council Plan's goals and objectives to help inform the Draft Budget 2022/23. Residents were asked to rank the Council Plan's six goals in order of priority and then provide their top five priorities from its 40 strategic objectives.
One of the key priorities expressed by the Ballarat community was to focus on renewing and enhancing Ballarat's roads network. To achieve this goal, the City of Ballarat is investing $18.5 million into renewing and repairing the city's roads.
The City of Ballarat is responsible for more than 1,200 kilometres of sealed residential roads across our municipality, including repairing potholes, maintaining roads and delivering road upgrades.
Not all roads are the responsibility of the City of Ballarat. Freeways and major arterial roads, such as Sturt Street, Main Road, Creswick Road, Latrobe Street, Howitt Street, Norman Street, Midland Highway, Albert Street, Skipton Street, Remembrance Drive, Wiltshire Lane and others are the responsibility of VicRoads.
Of the $18.5 million investment into road infrastructure, $3.8 million is Federal Government funding. These Federal Government grants will include Local Roads and Community Infrastructure, Blackspot and Roads to Recovery funding.
City of Ballarat Mayor, Cr Daniel Moloney said the Draft Budget has an increased focus on asset planning and re-programming Council's approach to repairing roads.
"In last year's Budget, maintenance and renewal were two priority areas for our roads program," he said.
"This year, we will again continue to focus on preventative work. We will direct more funding to asphalting, stablisation and re-sealing which will lead to greater efficiencies across the city.
"We will also continue to invest in road renewal. This will include surface treatment and reconstruction works and will reduce the number of roads at the end of their life and limit the contributing factors that could create the same problem."
Ballarat residents can view the City of Ballarat's Draft Budget 2022/23 and explore consultation and submission details at mysay.ballarat.vic.gov.au.
Printed copies of the Draft Budget can be found at Customer Service and Ballarat Information Centre.
The Draft Budget will be open for consultation until Friday 20 May at 5pm.
Key Facts - road funding
The City of Ballarat is investing $18.5 million into road infrastructure. This will include some of the following initiatives:
$8 million into major road renewal
$2 million into roads reseal program
$1.4 million into major patching
$1 million into asphalting
$879,000 into gravel road renewal
$485,000 into kerb and channel works
$200,000 to complete final road reseals
$1.8 million Local Roads Community Infrastructure funding (Federal Government Grant)
$500,000 Blackspot funding (Federal Government Grant)
$2 million Roads to Recovery ($1.5 million Federal Government Grant)
