Council crews well underway on the long road ahead of road repairs
Lockyer Valley Regional Council’s infrastructure crews are well underway on repairing our region’s roads following the May weather event.
Three flood events in only seven months have caused extensive damage to much of the region’s roads, with crews ensuring the worst defects are prioritised for repair.
Lockyer Valley Regional Council Infrastructure Portfolio Councillor, Janice Holstein said there were currently 1037 outstanding defects from the February and May events, with that number set to increase further. To date, more than 250 defects have been completed.
“We’re anticipating an additional 100 unsealed road defects to be added over the coming week as crews continue to assess the GoPro footage of the region’s unsealed roads and create the appropriate defect reports.
“The May rainfall event damaged areas of our road network that hadn’t received significant damage in the previous events from November and February, including Black Duck Creek and Mt Sylvia Roads in the southwest region of the Lockyer Valley.
“The current estimate for the flood damage for the February event is $13M, which includes the Emergent Works and the Restoration of Essential Public Assets (REPA) estimate.
“The May event has added an estimated $7.5M, including the emergent works and estimated REPA.
“Current estimates are that 50 per cent, which is 250km of the region’s unsealed network has suffered damage that will require repair, replacement of gravel or grading.
“The damage assessments are still ongoing, therefore the total estimate of $20.5m is still likely to change as the costs are clarified or incurred.
“Under the Disaster Relief Funding Arrangements, jointly funded between the Commonwealth and State governments, we are working towards a two-year timeframe to return our road network to a pre-event condition.
“We understand everyone would like their most-used road to be repaired first, however we need to attend to major road safety and access issues in order of priority.
“We’re urging the community to please be patient, as there are many areas for crews to get to and it will take some time,” Cr Holstein said.
For more information, contact Council on 1300 005 872.
