South-west road builder says VicRoads can't maintain region's crumbling road network

Bruce Couch spent 40 years building roads around Warrnambool, working for both local councils and the state road authorities. He said the decline of the region's roads had been steady over more than two decades.

"The biggest change came when they destroyed the former road construction authority called the Country Roads Board. After that the roads were built more and more by contractors," he said.

Roads have again been a key issue for south-west voters in the lead up to the state election, with candidates decrying the state of the network and calling for drastic action.

Under the CRB each region of Victoria was more or less autonomous, with local priorities and expertise. It was abolished and replaced by the Road Construction Authority in 1983, which then merged with the Road Traffic Authority in 1989 to become VicRoads.

This evolution brought road building and maintenance increasingly under centralised, ministerial control. Mr Couch said that was when the rot set in.

"I bought my first grader back in the early 1970s when I was contracted by the Warrnambool office of the CRB," he said.

"Back in those days they used to have local crews dotted all around the south-west, all dedicated to maintenance in their specific area."

Mr Couch said the restricted scope of each crew and local knowledge of road conditions, materials and construction kept the roads in good shape. He said while the CRB was specifically dedicated to road building and maintenance, VicRoads was a behemoth where such specific knowledge was diluted and confined to Melbourne.

The state government created Regional Roads Victoria in 2018 as a subdivision of VicRoads dedicated to the non-metro road network. Mr Couch said it didn't address the lack of expertise and local knowledge.

"You can see that clear as day by the quality of their work," he said.

"You see these cars with Vic Roads written on the side, driving about, jumping out and filling holes with a shovel. Or they have a truck that sprays a bit of tar and some stone, but they always just drive on again, they never do a proper repair job. That won't last five minutes."

Mr Couch said the works on the Princes Highway east of Warrnambool were another prime example.

"That bypass at Cudgee is a disgrace. They've mucked around with it so it's worse that it was before they started."

He said there were still plenty of talented road building contractors out there, but there was no accountability from the authority.

"Until the contractors get proper supervision, instruction and accountability we're going to keep getting subpar results."

But Mr Couch said even with a properly funded high-quality maintenance regime, south-west roads would still struggle to cope with the enormous vehicles that batter them each day.

The south-west produces a quarter of Australia's milk supply, but Mr Couch said the tankers transferring it were simply too heavy.

"The milk tankers now weigh in at 80 tonnes. The roads were never built to carry that sort of weight," he said. "Any of the roads those milk tankers drive on, you can see the side of the road that the loaded tankers drive on because it's pushed totally out of shape."

He said the south-west either needed much more funding, or a cap on vehicle weight. "Who is giving out the permits for them to carry such heavy loads?" he said.

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