City urges State Government to fund repairs to heavily damaged rural roads

Significant rainfall in the last week has resulted in more than $2.5 million in estimated damages occurred to rural roads and left the City with no alternative but to urge the State Government to pay for the repairs.

City of Greater Geraldton Chief Executive Officer Ken Diehm said road repairs to this scale were unexpected and will have a serious impact on the City’s operational budget.

“The heavy rainfall in the last seven days has caused extensive damage to our rural roads and river crossings,” he said.

“It was by no means foreseeable and by far exceeds the City’s allocated budget for rural roads this financial year.

“While some of the damage has occurred on roads that lie outside of our Local Government boundary this still impacts members of the community who regularly use these roads.

“The City needs assistance from the State Government to repair these roads otherwise money will need to be diverted from other projects and programs to cover the costs,” Mr Diehm added.

“With more rainfall forecast over the next couple of days we can expect rural roads to be even further damaged and without assistance to repair them our entire community will ultimately be disadvantaged.”