Message from the Mayor: 28 October 2022

This week's Message from the Mayor comes to you via video. 

Hello, I'm John Connors, the Mayor of the Dungog Shire bringing you this week's Mayoral Message.

Many of you will have heard the announcement by the Minister for local roads and transport, Sam Farraway, that the Government is announcing $50 million specifically for potholes in regional New South Wales.

It sounds like a lot of money, and it is, but in relative terms, it has to be broken down.

The recipients of the $50 million will be the 95 regional and rural councils throughout New South Wales, including Dungog. And whilst the guidelines are still awaited, it's understood that it will be allocated on a per-kilometer basis of sealed roads within the various local government areas.

At best guess, we think we may get up to about $200,000. But even if we do get that, and it would be very gratefully received, it’s not an instant panacea to the problem. It won't remove the potholes tomorrow, next week or the week after.

The money is one essential element, but there are others, and the most critical one is labour. And it's impossible to hire more people or to get contractors to do the work. And in some instances, it's impossible to get the materials with which to do the work.

So we'll gratefully accept whatever our allocation is in due course. We understand that decision will be made as to the successful grantees and the amounts of money by the end of November.

But it will be a slow process to get that money into the potholes. We run into difficulties day after day with labour, contractors and with materials. That's having an impact generally on our roads. Those of you who reside in Dungog town will be aware of the works currently being carried out on Hook Street, it was planned for work to be completed one block at a time. Now you will see there are two blocks that are being worked on. The reason for that is the inability to obtain lime to stabilise the road.

The lime supplier has allocated all supplies for the rest of the year. Council has been able to secure a supply to do those two blocks but it wasn't available in time to stabilise the first block and hence work moved on to the second block.

That same type of problem is showing itself in the supply, or lack of supply, of gravel and road base. There are roadworks that have been delayed because Councils are unable to secure adequate supplies of gravel and there's no immediate solution to that problem within the Hunter.

Council has recently called tenders for further works on Clarencetown Road leading into the town of Dungog, right through to Dowling Street, and those tenders will be awarded shortly.

At the moment it's not clear when those roadworks will commence, but it will not be this side of Christmas. Council is also planning to commence roadworks in East Gresford leading up from the former road works up Park Street and then up Durham Road. Those works are in the final design stages, and I understand should commence in the not-too-distant future.

But again, they're terribly dependent upon manpower and materials, be they Council employees or contractors. The same issues arise because of the amount of work that's being carried out throughout the state, due to the floods and the rain, but also due to the large amounts of money that have been made available by state and federal governments over recent years, which exacerbates the problem. It's not just a Dungog problem, it's a statewide problem.

I spent two days earlier in the week at the local government New South Wales conference, which was attended by over 100 councils throughout New South Wales and I think it would be unanimous that they all face particularly the rural councils and also some of the urban councils, the same problems - a lack of manpower, a lack of materials, which leads to a lack of ability to do the works that they'd like to be able to do, albeit that they've got the funds to do.

So regrettably, it's a different situation from what existed some years ago but it's producing the same outcome. We just have to be patient. There's no instant solution to the problem. So I ask that you all bear with us. Drive carefully, drive knowing that there are potholes on the road, and councils will certainly do their utmost to alleviate the problem as quickly as it's able, with the resources it's able to secure.

So until next week, good luck and goodbye.