Dubbo Regional Council mayor Mathew Dickerson is confident his council will receive around $5.3 million to fix local roads after the NSW premier announced $500 million for regional and metropolitan councils to repair roads across the state.
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Minister for Regional Transport and Roads Sam Farraway launched a $50 million recovery fund in October, but that was widely panned for being an inadequate allocation of funds.
With the road network becoming worse and a labour shortage meaning work to repair roads is a slow process, Mr Perrottet, deputy premier Paul Toole and Mr Farraway announced a repair package worth 10 times its original value in the heart of Cabonne on Tuesday.
Councils can apply for the $500 million this week - with allocations to be determined based on the size of the road network in each Local Government Area.
"In the previous $50 million pothole repair fund DRC received $955,707.88 or 1.91 per cent of the total funding. The latest announcement is for $500 million of which $280 million is allocated to regional councils. If we receive a similar allocation, the 1.91 per cent should equate to $5,351,964.13," Cr Dickerson said.
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Cr Dickerson said this was very positive given the impact the La Nina saturated soils have had on the regions sealed and unsealed road network.
"The reconstruction and repair of roads will take a number of years and external funding is needed to shorten this timeframe and reduce the impact on other council services," he said.
The mayor said large scale funding was important, especially for DRC as they already had a $40 million backlog in road asset maintenance before the latest series of flood events.
"This has been exacerbated by three La Nina years with both the sealed and unsealed road network deteriorating," he said.
A report will be provided to council in February detailing the proposed roads for servicing and the delivery options given the funding must be spent by December 31.
"This is a significant challenge when materials and contractors will be in high demand and prices may rise on the back of that strong demand," he said.
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