Council report finds Wagga has worst road infrastructure backlog amid worsening road crisis

Councillors will discuss the document - which reinforces the dire state of Wagga's problem-plagued roads - at tonight's council meeting, with a view to determine ways to plug maintenance gaps and reduce the significant backlog.

The council has budgeted $37.4 million in expenditure on road maintenance, renewal and upgrades across the 2022/2023 financial year but conceded it "has a known shortfall of roads funding".

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The report, by the council's director of infrastructure services, Warren Faulkner, also found that each year there is a shortfall in roads maintenance, it "not only adds to the rate of deterioration of the network" but also creates an "infrastructure backlog".

When a gap in funding accumulates over time, more significant investment is required to improve the road network to the "acceptable standard", Mr Faulkner said.

The report stems from a motion moved by councillor Dan Hayes at the new council's first meeting in January.

Cr Hayes said the findings were not a great look. "I accept this is [a negative reflection on council]," he said.

Cr Hayes said the purpose of the original motion was to highlight the issue of managing the city's roads and put it "on the agenda and identify what the challenge is".

He called on governments to do a better job providing funds for road maintenance.

"There's never any grants for maintenance, it's always for new facilities," Cr Hayes said.

Councillor Rod Kendall also said maintenance was not high enough on the agenda.

"There was a general feeling that the overall expenditure on road maintenance was not as high as it needs to be," Cr Kendall said. "In saying that, council still spends a large amount on road maintenance and repairs."

Wagga is in the top five councils for length of road network, but its total expenditure on roads, bridge and footpaths as a percentage of budget spend puts it in the bottom five of 26 regional town/city councils in NSW.

The report also outlined a schedule of repairs for the 2022/23 financial year, which includes pavement rehabilitation, heavy patching and bitumen resealing work across suburbs and the LGA.

A number of significant road upgrades have been planned this year. Those projects include just over $2.1 million being budgeted to upgrade Old Narrandera Road between the Olympic Highway and Pine Gully Road, with work scheduled to take place between March and June next year.

Mr Faulkner recommended councillors hold a series of workshops ahead of the 2023/24 budget to develop funding strategies "to close the maintenance and renewal gap as well as the backlog for roads infrastructure".

Cr Kendall said the report informed the council and the community about how much was being spent on roads and how expensive they are to maintain. However, he also raised the spectre of a rate rise to help pay for the fixes if necessary. "When you're looking at the budget, you always consider what to do with the rate rises," he said.

Meanwhile, councillor Richard Foley will tonight call on for the council to purchase a JCB Pothole Pro machine "dedicated wholly and solely to pothole repair".

Mr Foley will also recommend the council gets "on with the job of getting the potholes addressed."

"When this wet period is over, I think the federal government is going to have to come up with some enormous [funding] packages to resolve this crisis," he said.

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