MP Roma Britnell says country Victoria has been failed by the state government

The Standard readers have listed roads maintained by local government and state government in dire need of repairs.

South West Coast MP Roma Britnell said she sympathised with south-west councils who had been hit by state government budget cuts but her focus was on state government maintained roads.

She said too many of them were very dangerous and it was the government's responsibility to fix them.

"There is a massive lack of responsibility on this government's behalf," she said.

"They're completely turning a blind eye to country Victoria and the extent of the damage has been going for so long. They have been in government for 20 of the past 24 years."

Ms Britnell said the state government had failed to do renewal projects and it had cut budgets instead of managing its responsibilities.

She said the government had not kept the roads in conditions that prevented deterioration and instead had let it go backwards "at a great rate of knots."

Ms Britnell said rural councils had seen a lot of cost shifting for services that they were trying to maintain for the community. She said they were struggling to spread the rates across the services and ratepayers were copping it.

A spokeswoman for the state government said it was getting on with repairing "unprecedented levels of damage caused to the road network as a result of one of the wettest years in Victoria's history."

"We've already delivered almost $165 million in emergency flood repairs, with a further $770 million set to be spent on maintaining our roads over the next 12 months," the spokeswoman said.

"In July 2023, crews across the state have logged hundreds of hours completing more than 13,630 individual road maintenance jobs and patching more than 55,000 potholes."

Across the state, 2022 was the fifth-wettest year since records began in 1900, and the wettest year since 1974.

Repair works were being done on the Cobden Port Campbell Road and Mackinnons Brdge Road.

Claire Mahony commented on The Standard's Facebook page that the potholes were repaired and then it rained and "then they are back again putting up speed signs to slow down."

Another reader Dave Fazz said he drove to Port Fairy last week and the roads were "cooked."

"Never seen roads that bad in my life," he said.

Sabina Sabella Cara said most of the road from Terang to Noorat, Mackinnons Bridge Road, needed major repairs.

She said it was a high flow truck road that should be made to cater for such a volume of heavy vehicles.

"Like a lot of our roads cheap as fixes that start to diminish as soon as a vehicle drives over them," she said.

The Standard photographed the condition of Howards Road in Taroon near Garvoc which is a Moyne Shire road.

Moyne Shire Council director of assets and community Edith Farrell said crews had been at Howards Road last week and were back there on Monday, September 4.

"Moyne Shire covers more than 5000 square kilometres and while we try to stay on top of issues, we do need assistance from the community as well and ask them to get in touch if they spot something that needs our attention," she said.

"Contacting council is as simple as calling 1300 656 564 during business hours or heading to our website and filling in a service request under the contact us tab.

"The sooner we are made aware of an issue, the quicker we will be able to respond."

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