The NSW Business Chamber is pushing the NSW Government to get on with announcing more infrastructure projects in regional NSW, saying metro areas are enjoying a bigger slice of the funding pie.
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Local councils across New England/North West local government areas have more than $107 million in infrastructure backlogs, with Armidale, Guyra, Narrabri and Liverpool Plains some of the worst.
With $277 million worth of roads on its books Tenterfield is faring better, having reduced its $11.15 million backlog in 2014/15 to $6.31 million in 2015/16, according to NRMA’s Infrastructure Backlog report released August 24. Council’s chief executive officer Andre Kompler said the backlog fell farther in 2016/17 and is projected to fall again this financial year.
Nevertheless NSW Business Chamber’ s regional manager Joe Townsend is keen for the state government to increase funding.
“Regional NSW has long been promised its share of the vast Rebuilding NSW infrastructure program – funded by the lease of our electricity assets – but regional NSW is no closer to seeing where much of this money will be spent,” he said.
“In stark contrast, Sydney is seeing transport project after transport project announced with construction already kicking off.
“Today’s NRMA report, Funding local roads: Recommendations to clear the infrastructure backlog, spells out that Regional NSW is being significantly neglected with an infrastructure backlog deficit between 2014/15 to 2015/16 rising by 17.2 per cent from $1.33 billion to $1.56 billion.This significant backlog contributes nearly 80 per cent of the NSW road infrastructure backlog.
“The New England North region has a $107.8 million backlog in local road infrastructure which is simply not good enough when there is nearly $8 billion earmarked for regional NSW infrastructure sitting in the NSW Government’s coffers.”
Mr Townsend said regional roads provide the economic backbone for regional economies through providing connectivity for residents and enabling the passage of freight, but local governments alone are unable to keep up with the huge building and maintenance task required.
“With a backlog of more than $1.5 billion in regional road infrastructure identified, the NSW Government can no longer delay allocating adequate funding to address this backlog.
“Over the next 15 years freight movements across NSW are expected to nearly double from 256 to 469 million tonnes. As the New England North West is one of the state’s largest agricultural and food producers, without sufficient investment in the New England North West we will continue to see a substandard road network across the region, jeopardise efficient and safe journeys and constrain economic growth.”
NRMA recommendations
NRMA is recommending the following options be considered to address the current backlog of local road infrastructure across NSW, and to plan for the future growth and use of the local road network:
- Fast track funding of the Roads to Recovery program.
- Provide a percentage share of fuel excise levy to local councils to fund road maintenance.
- Expand the local government Infrastructure Backlog Fund.
- Provide Local Government with low interest region specific infrastructure and investment funds, and region specific funding similar to the Hunter Infrastructure and Investment Fund.
- Aggregate the measurement of specific road asset management benchmarking, and consolidate regional road infrastructure planning. This also includes rebuild of the diminishing engineering capacity in most regional councils.
- Establish Road Stewardship Maintenance contracts to improve the delivery of road infrastructure in regional NSW.
- Reform current Australian and NSW Government funding programs for local councils.
- Have the annual Special Schedule 7, Report on Infrastructure Assets for Local Councils, financially audited to improve the accuracy for determining funding and infrastructure requirements.
