Country roads are crumbling away

 State Member for Eildon Cindy McLeish has slammed the Andrews Labor Government’s lack of investment in rural and regional roads saying that roads throughout the State are disintegrating.

“Regional Victorians continue to drive on country roads that are literally crumbling away.  Daniel Andrews’ promised $1 billion for the maintenance of these roads has failed to materialise,” Ms McLeish said.

Last month Ms McLeish launched the first stage in a campaign to fix local roads throughout the Mansfield, Murrindindi and Yarra Ranges Shires.

“I have received over 50 submissions from local residents about the most dangerous roads in our region. These are on top of the many letters, phone calls and emails my office receives from locals pleading for our roads to be fixed,” Ms McLeish said.

Ms McLeish said that all submissions received will be raised directly with the Minister for Roads, or if the complaint is in regard to a council road, Ms McLeish will raise the hazard with the relevant council.

Motorists can help by also reporting road hazards directly to VicRoads.

“The VicRoads website allows motorists to directly report a road issue. The more voices there are to complain about local road safety, the greater the chance of having something done sooner than later,” Ms McLeish said.

Ms McLeish said that the State Labor Government had cut 10 per cent from the road asset management budget whilst scrapping the Coalition’s $160 million Country Roads and Bridges program

“Daniel Andrews’ last budget shows that state taxes have jumped by $3.7 billion or 20.7% in just two years. But despite this record tax increase, nothing has been done to make any meaningful improvement to country roads.”

“It is more of the same. Every time there is a Labor government, the first group that gets forgotten about is country Victoria,” Ms McLeish concluded.