By Eleanor Wilson
Local road satisfaction in the City of Casey has taken another nosedive, according to recent data.
Figures from the City of Casey Community Satisfaction Survey from quarter two (Q2) 2022/23 show residents’ satisfaction for local roads has stooped to 45 per cent, down from 56 per cent in 2021/22.
The lowest scores received were from the municipality’s south and coastal villages, council said, where satisfaction for local roads was at just 10 per cent.
The results come as no surprise to Tooradin local and former City of Casey mayor and councillor Colin Butler, who believes the local road quality is a result of cost cutting by council.
“No wonder [road satisfaction] is at 10 per cent, rural roads get graded every six weeks since the administrators came in,” Mr Butler said.
“You can ask for them to be graded but there is no accountability under administration, as you can only talk to council officers and have no community representation to pursue your problems.
“The current administrators are not available to the public whatsoever, so they don’t represent the public at all – they represent the purse strings.”
Casey Council is currently run by government-appointed administrators, and will be until 2024, after it was embroiled in a corruption scandal and sacked in 2020.
Mr Butler, who was Casey mayor in 2007 and a councillor from 2003 to 2008, claims unsealed roads were graded every three weeks 10 years ago.
Council grades unsealed roads to reshape and re-compact the road, even the road surface and to ensure that the road will shed water away from the centre after rain.
“The unmade roads were a disgrace last year during winter and all council did was lay cheap stone on to save costs.”
A fellow Tooradin local, who wished not to be named, said residents on Bayview Road, a local dirt road located off the South Gippsland Highway, have been asking to have the road asphalted “for decades”.
Residents claim Casey Council considers Bayview Road as a dead-end street and is therefore not prioritised for sealing.
But locals argue the road is a common thoroughfare for traffic heading toward the local sports clubs.
“Everyone uses Bayview Road to access the Tooradin pub and football/netball club, otherwise, if you’re travelling on the South Gippsland Highway, you have to go past it and do a U-turn and come back, so it’s a lot easier to use Bayview Road,” the resident said.
“I have no issue with the traffic, it’s more of a safety concern with the road quality.”
The City of Casey’s city planning and infrastructure director, James Collins, said the council has not received any formal requests to seal Bayview Road, Tooradin.
“All gravel roads across Casey, including Bayview Road, are proactively inspected monthly,” he said.
“Following the inspection, if any defects are identified it will undergo a treatment called ‘grading’ which restores the driving surface and shape of the road.
“Each year, in early December, the road also gets re-graded and has dust suppression applied.”
Mr Collins said council needs to receive a formal request by property owners before considering the sealing of a local road, such as Bayview Road.
“Following this formal request, Council would then undertake a consultation process to determine if all property owners support the sealing of the road and their funding contributions,” he said.
“Council’s funding contribution towards the construction of new infrastructure, including under a Special Charge Scheme is set according to the type of work required.
“For the sealing of local roads, Council would contribute 25 percent of the cost and the property owners would contribute 75 percent of the cost.”
Council’s community satisfaction survey is conducted four times a year, with 600 responses received for the latest, Q2 2022/23 results, which is expected to increase to 800 by the end of the financial year.
The 2021/22 survey results represent a full year of data, whereas the Q2 2022/23 results represent the current quarter’s results, the council said.
Aside from local road satisfaction, the council also recorded a slump in every other category of its community satisfaction survey for Q2 2022/23, including overall performance, in which just half of residents in the municipality considered themselves satisfied with the council’s management.
The council is currently conducting a survey to better understand how it can engage Casey residents and seek their opinions and concerns on a range of important issues and decisions.
The anonymous survey is available online via the community consultation website Casey Conversations until Monday 27 March.
Residents can also contact Council Administrators via Casey Conversations.
