Federation Council Mayor, Pat Bourke, has welcomed additional funding for local road safety measures through the Federal Government’s Roads to Recovery program.
“Council will receive $12,289,525 in total across the five years of this program,” said Mayor Bourke (pictured).
“In our Long Term Financial Plan, Council had budgeted to receive $8.4 million from this ongoing funding program. This latest announcement provides an additional $3.9 million on what we anticipated to be receiving and will be spent across our extensive road network.”
More than $4 billion will be made available under the Roads to Recovery program over the next five years.
The Federal Government has committed to progressively doubling the program’s funding to $1 billion annually, delivered in the 2024-25 Budget. Roads to Recovery supports local road construction and maintenance by local government.
Mayor Bourke said the Council has been lobbying the State and Federal Governments for increases in road funding to address Council’s deteriorating road network.
“Council will continue to lobby both levels of government to ensure our Local Government Area and other rural councils receive increased road funding,” he said.
“Road funding and maintenance forms a huge part of regional and rural councils’ ongoing financial sustainability challenges and it is pleasing to see the Federal Government in this instance responding to our lobbying efforts and recognising the challenges we face as a sector.”
Federal Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government Minister, Catherine King said the Government was committed to ensuring local government road funding was “stable, predictable and fair into the future”.
“Local Councils are our trusted delivery partners and they know where the work on local roads is most needed to improve safety,” Minister King said.
“That is why we have increased the funding provided through the Roads to Recovery program, delivering on our commitment to improve road safety across Australia.”
