Shire’s road satisfaction hits new low

THE Surf Coast Shire’s roads continue to be the biggest concern for its ratepayers, with the quality of both sealed and unsealed roads hitting new lows in the latest community satisfaction survey (CSS).

Ratepayers have also marked down the general direction of the shire, which is two points lower than last year and lower than both the state and large shire averages for this year

Out of a possible score of 100, the rating for the condition of sealed local streets has dropped 12 points over the past six years, from 63 in 2021 to 51 in 2026 – one below last year’s record low.

The maintenance of unsealed roads is down nine points over the same time period from 54 to 45, compared to 46 in 2025.

Both kinds of roads are rated particularly badly by Winchelsea Ward residents, with unsealed roads scoring only 30 and sealed roads scoring 42.

Klein Research, which collated and analysed responses to the CSS for the shire, states in its report that the condition of sealed local streets is the shire’s lowest performing core service.

The shire’s general manager of community life Damian Waight said road complaints were lower than the previous financial year, with an increase in sealed maintenance works and a decrease in unsealed maintenance works.

“Local roads are clearly important to the community and are an area of continued focus for us,” he said.

“We’ll invest $21.21 million in roads this financial year, taking in maintenance and repairs, renewal projects and road safety upgrades across the shire.

“We manage a large network of sealed and unsealed roads and aim to maintain them to the highest standards possible within our available resources.”

The shire’s overall performance, spending of public funds and the council’s general direction are also all down compared to 2025 and all below the state average for this year.

 

Klein Research’s report notes the lower general direction score is “the clearest signal that the council’s broader narrative is not landing as well as it did a year ago”.

Overall performance is up among all age groups except 18-34 year olds, where it has dropped 11 points to 52.

Waight said demographic results would be part of the shire’s analysis of the CSS results.

“We wouldn’t want to speculate about the reasons for movement in results within individual age brackets at this stage, but we’ll be looking at it closely,” he said.

Waste management (75) and customer service (70) were the shire’s top two performing areas.

“This year’s results have shown clear areas of strength, as well as areas where perceptions of our performance have dropped,” Waight said.

“We are still analysing the results, including the respondents’ verbatim comments, to understand the detail behind the ratings we’ve received.

“The findings will contribute to our future planning, alongside a range of other feedback and data.”

Data was gathered via independent phone and online surveys of 601 resident and non-resident shire ratepayers during February and March this year.

Australian-based call centre TKW Research made 12,544 calls to get a statistically valid sample of respondents.

Of the 79 councils in Victoria, 38 took part in this year’s survey, compared to 56 in 2025.

To read the shire’s full CSS results, head to surfcoast.vic.gov.au