Councils focus on flood repairs

THE Surf Coast and Geelong councils have temporarily suspended their Road Management Plan’s (RMP) to prioritise repairs to flood-damaged roads, paths and bridges.

Each municipality reported receiving hundreds of requests to repair road and drainage assets, respond to fallen trees, landslips and drainage issues due to weeks of heavy storms.

The Surf Coast Shire has identified several assets in need of significant repairs and inspectors in Geelong have been unable to inspect numerous assets like bridges because they’ve been inaccessible or underwater, but are expected to require “considerable restoration.”

“Given the volume of damage and the necessary diversion of resources, our Road Management Plan will be suspended until November 21,” Surf Coast Council’s general manager community life Gail Gatt said.

“Council’s capacity to respond to enquiries and call-outs for issues like potholes and other routine road maintenance will be significantly reduced, and target response times in some cases doubled.”

As of Friday last week Geelong council was fielding an average of 10 new pothole request per day and has suspended its Road Management Plan for three months.

“The team has been working incredibly hard to ensure community safety following these rain events,” Geelong’s acting CEO Kaarina Phyland said.

“Greater Geelong experienced 50-70mm of rain across the Barwon, Moorabool and Leigh river catchments between 12-15 October, causing widespread damage.”

“Other Victorian councils, such as the City of Greater Bendigo, Mitchell Shire and Golden Plains Shire, have also enacted this special clause to suspend their RMPs in light of the recent flood damage.”