Golden Plains pothole fix plan

Shire establishes gravel road maintenance program

GOLDEN Plains Shire council has approved changes to the way is manages potholes and washboarding on the municipality’s seven-hundred kilometres of gravel roads.

The move was made at a recent council meeting in Bannockburn and will see any pothole deeper than 10cm and wider than 40cm, and roads with corrugations higher than 6.5cm over 30 per cent of a 1km stretch fixed within 35 business days of reporting and assessment.

The new maintenance program will also see all gravel roads graded once a year and the employment of a road’s inspector.

“I think it’s a great idea we’re having a new inspector to go around to the roads and see how big the potholes are,” Cr Helena Kirby said.

“At the end of the day it all comes back to customer service. If people know when their roads are going to be graded, how long it’s going to be before they are going to be seen to, the communication circle is a lot better.”

Yet the policy move wasn’t without late changes as Cr Les Rowe led a push to have the minimum for pothole depth reduced by a third. Originally 15cm was the trigger for fast repairs.

“I find the intervention level greater than 150mm for potholes not acceptable,” Cr Rowe said. “If you get a 14-inch tyre… the dimeter of the tyre is about 550 to 600mm, therefore you’ve got 27 per cent of the tyre in that rut.”

The change in the way council manages gravel roads marks the first time the municipality has had a scheduled roads maintenance program.

Once council receives notification of a pothole or washboarding issues via official channels, the plan is to have the problem assessed within five business days and if the complaint meets criteria for action 30 business days is the maximum time to repairs.

Along with the ad hoc fixes, now every gravel road in the Shire will be graded once a year by one of four graders.

The grader resources will be spread out across the municipality and allocated to four quadrants.

Council will also for the first time hire a dedicated roads inspector who’ll be responsible for assessing gravel road conditions and making decisions on what fulfils the urgent fix criteria.

The upgraded maintenance program plan was put in motion following a review of how the Shire has previously managed gravel roads.

That review found issues with the way roads had been maintained including a lack of work standard, inefficient allocation of resources, lack of follow up and a “squeaky wheel” approach to issues where ratepayers who raised their issue the most saw more action.

“I know some residents do complain, and they complain more than others and therefore they’re getting their roads graded more often,” Cr Kirby said.

Along with the schedules for road maintenance and the addition of the road’s inspector, the new program also sets a 12-month review period to see how the plan works.

Golden Plains Shire only conducts regular road grading in the wetter months of the year, with annual grading set to pause in October for summer.