Tasmanian council wants inquiry into state road 'failures'

The Break O'Day Council is seeking other councils' support to have peak body the Local Government Association of Tasmania raise "concerns with the Tasmanian government in relation to the quality of maintenance and new construction work which is being undertaken on the network of roads which are the responsibility of the Department of State Growth and ask the Tasmanian government to implement an independent review".

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The motion is on the agenda for discussion at LGAT's general meeting at Devonport's paranaple Convention Centre on September 16.

The council's inquiry proposal was music to the ears of Latrobe businessman and frequent traveller Malcolm Ryan, who has become a strident critic of the quality of roadworks on state roads in recent times.

"Absolutely, 100 per cent," Mr Ryan said of the idea.

"It's the same as fish farming or wind farms; we have to get an independent assessment of it.

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"Jump in a car with me and I'll take you for a spin to Yolla.

"That road was built and finished in 1974.

" ... it was the main route to the West Coast for at least 10 years and there are still no patches or anything on it.

"Why is that road standing up?

"We had the DMR (former Department of Main Roads) building it.

"They built it to good specs and it didn't break up.

"Now they tear up and rip up within days of them finishing them.

"That's because they're not putting enough seal down.

"They're doing just enough to get it built, not to make it last, and then they blame drivers for getting cranky at roadworks."

The department said it used road construction and maintenance specifications based on VicRoads material, with some changed for the Tasmanian context. .

"Projects have a defects liability period and any works that are found to be defective are fixed by the contractor at their expense," it said.

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"With a large number of projects occurring across the state at any one time, sometimes issues occur.

"While every effort is made to scope and investigate sites prior to construction, problems can sometimes be detected during construction that were not evident before.

"The department works with contractors to ensure that all issues are rectified as quickly as possible."

It said it would collect data on the structural strength of road pavements that would help improve understanding of road conditions to aid decision making on where to spend money on pavement renewal

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Break O'Day, in support of its motion, said: "Wherever we travel across Tasmania we see evidence of failures within the road infrastructure which we rely so heavily on as a state."

"These failures are not just in aged infrastructure, but also in new upgraded infrastructure which has been constructed in the last few years."

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