The Community Strategy Plan consultation of November 2024 resoundingly showed the community’s desire for an improved road network.
This page is a compilation of statements, data and graphs from the Road Strategy report. A new report is expected in early 2026.
The MidCoast Road Strategy outlines what would be required to improve our road network’s condition and meet the community’s expectations. It identifies the current state of our roads, future desired states, challenges, and improvement opportunities.
These are some quotes from the preamble and executive summary:
- We seek to ensure our actions meet the expectations of the current community and to ensure our generation carries its fair share to avoid passing on a larger debt to our children.
- Road crashes are avoidable. We recognise that our community can spend longer driving between locations than other areas. As a result, local residents are at more risk of being involved in a crash.
- We also acknowledge the vital role local roads play in keeping communities connected and protected, and heed the many lessons learnt from recent natural disasters
- The current state of our road network is not meeting the community’s expectations. Residents have consistently identified the need for improvement and have little appetite for lower service levels.
- The network has gradually declined over the decades, resulting in a continual increasing backlog estimated at $180 million.
- The estimated annual funding shortfall for transport infrastructure renewal is $26.35 million. A further $8.5 million of additional maintenance funding is required each year to initiate preventative maintenance programs that will allow us to realise the value of our assets.
The future state of our roads can be understood from graphs included in the strategy. I asked for detail from the General Manager and responses were provided by the Director of Infrastructure and Engineering Services, Rob Scott, by way of Questions with Notice to the December 10 2025 meeting below.
Question 1
In reference to Figure 56 – Road Pavement Condition Index (PCI) Deterioration & Intervention Costs Model on page 91 of the MidCoast Council Road Strategy, can the General Manager explain this graph and its relationship to the need for regular intervention work on our transport assets?
Response by Director Infrastructure & Engineering Services
Response to Question 1
The graph shown in Figure 56 of the MidCoast Road Strategy outlines the relative costs of preserving road pavements through regular renewal treatments (at the lowest lifecycle cost) in contrast to allowing pavement to deteriorate with considerably higher treatment costs.
Research from multiple sources consistently identifies regular pavement preservation through actions like resealing as being six to ten times cheaper than allowing roads to deteriorate before more significant intervention.
Further, the rate of pavement deterioration accelerates over time. The current condition of our transport network shows that without a change in the amount of maintenance and renewal; our roads will deteriorate around twice as fast in the future as they have in the past. This will substantially increase the backlog of work and the costs to restore the network to acceptable condition in future.
Question 2
In reference to Figure 57 – MCC Road Asset Condition Overlayed on Deterioration Model on page 91 of the Road Strategy, can the General Manager explain this graph and its ramifications for our network?
Response to Question 2
Figure 57 demonstrates that the MidCoast Road Network on average has already deteriorated beyond the point where regular preservation interventions can provide for the lowest lifecycle cost. This means that our road network will cost more in the long term to maintain and renew whilst it can be expected to deteriorate faster than a network in optimal condition. This will continue to worsen unless there is a substantial change.
Question 3
In reference to Figure 59 – Impacts of Failing to Meet Maintenance & Renewal Ratio Benchmarks on p.92 of the Road Strategy, can the General Manager explain this graph and how it relates to the requirements for increased maintenance funding and its relationship with the principle of intergenerational equity?
Response to Question 3
Figure 59 diagrammatically represent the impact of asset renewal and maintenance ratios on the average road network condition. In years where the ratios exceed the benchmark target of one the condition is expected to climb slightly back up the curve (i.e. we are renewing it faster than it is deteriorating). In years where it is less than one, the average condition will slip further down the curve.
In relation to the concept of intergenerational equity, allowing the road network to deteriorate further will encumber future generations with relatively higher life cycle costs to address the declining asset condition resulting from use by the current generation. In short, doing nothing now to address the maintenance and renewal gap for the road network diminishes intergenerational equity.
In short, the roads are only going to get worse and be more expensive to fix meaning that they’ll be less likely to be fixed.
What has to change?
- The state and federal governments have to provide more funds for the roads in our area as they are currently starving us. Is money tight or is it intensional? I tend to the latter as this situation is not new for us or for much of rural and regional NSW.
- Our budget allocation, not only for roads as a whole but also for individual projects needs to increase. We should be trying to renew and rehabilitate our roads to a standard that is much more resilient, meaning that we will not have to spend money over and over again on the same sections of road.
- Our designs and maintenance can be better. Our roads do not have sufficient crowns built in the middle, the corners are not all positively cambered, our verges are not clear and sloping away from the road and our drains are not well enough maintained. If these issues were addressed then we would see less deterioration of our roads, giving us time to be working on improvement.