City of Ballarat invests $3.4 million to repair municipal roads

The City of Ballarat is investing $3.4 million to improve our network’s sealed roads. 

The organisation and Council acknowledge the community’s frustration in relation to the city’s damaged road network and have been working on repairing as many of our roads as possible throughout summer. 

A combination of ageing roads, traffic and wet weather has damaged the city’s road network, leading to an increase in potholes.  

On Tuesday, major patching works began to repair a section of damaged road on Ballarat’s iconic Wendouree Parade, between the Forest Street roundabout and Nursery Drive. The asphalt patching and resurfacing works will be completed by Friday. 

City of Ballarat Mayor, Cr Daniel Moloney said while it was great to have so much rainfall last winter, unfortunately wet weather leads to more potholes. 

“When the ground is so wet, small cracks in the road surface can lead to potholes,” he said. 

“We know that filling a pothole with asphalt and gravel is a temporary solution in winter to make the roads safe for motorists. 

“When we have dry weather, we carry out major patching to repair these roads. The major patching works taking place on Wendouree Parade are a great example of how we revitalise a road with multiple failures in the road surface or underlying road pavement. 

“Maintaining and upgrading our road infrastructure requires significant funding and planning each year to ensure our roads are maintained to an appropriate standard.  

“No-one wants damaged roads. Council has listened to the community and is delivering major investment to keep our local roads safe for our community.” 

Each year, the City of Ballarat carries out major patching works on around 150 roads across the municipality. 

Potholes, road repairs and road upgrades in the Ballarat municipality on local roads are the responsibility of the City of Ballarat. 

Freeways and major arterial roads, such as Sturt Street, Main Road, Creswick Road, Latrobe Street, Howitt Street, Norman Street, Midland Highway, Whitehorse Road, Geelong Road, Albert Street, Skipton Street, Remembrance Drive, Wiltshire Lane and others are the responsibility of VicRoads. These roads can be found through searching ‘Maps of declared roads’ at vicroads.vic.gov.au. 

The City of Ballarat encourages residents to report any repairs needed to our roads. To request repairs to a City of Ballarat road, visit forms.ballarat.vic.gov.au/ReportIssue or call Customer Service on 5320 5500. 

Key facts: 

• The City of Ballarat received 2,550 pothole enquiries in 2021. This was a 36 per cent increase on 2020 and an 18 per cent increase on 2019. 

• The $3.4 million investment, outlined in the City of Ballarat’s 2021-2022 budget, includes $1.4 million, up from $500,000, in asphalting and stabilisation patching road works across the city this financial year. The re-seal program has also increased from $1.4 million to $2 million. 

• The asphalt patching and resurfacing works on Wendouree Parade, valued at $190,000, will repair 5200sqm of damaged road. 

• The City of Ballarat maintains more than 1,200 kilometres of sealed roads and 390 kilometres of unsealed roads across the municipality.