SCHOOL students have sent a message to the Victorian Government that it’s time to fund repairs for Toolamba Road.
Liberal Member for Northern Victoria recently visited Shepparton ACE Secondary College to talk with students about democracy and how to engage with parliament.
One of the issues students raised with Ms Lovell was their concern with the dire state of rural roads.
School students might not drive yet, but they know our roads are in urgent need of repair because they have bumped around in the back seat of the family car as it hit potholes or swerved to miss the depressions, corrugation, rutting and cracks on our rural roads.
The students particularly mentioned how hazardous the severely degraded stretch of Toolamba Road is between the Midland Hwy intersection and Rumbalara Road.
There is also a series of potholes that run between Toolamba-Rushworth Road and Waugh Road in urgent need of repair.
Ms Lovell promised to raise the matter with the Minister for Roads and Road safety on their behalf and spoke in parliament this week on the government to allocate funding for urgent repairs to Toolamba Road.
“Rural and regional roads are in a dire state after a decade of neglect by the State Labor Government and will decay even further as Labor’s new Budget has cut the road resurfacing target by 75 per cent. Students told me it’s time to fix Toolamba Road, and I hope the Minister for Roads and Road Safety will provide them with a positive response.”
Labor’s 24-25 Budget has cut the target for resurfacing and treatment of regional roads by 75 per cent over the past two years, from 12.1M square meters of road area in 2022-2023 down to 3.1M square metres of road area in 2024-2025.
Rural and regional roads are set to get worse under Labor without an urgent improvement in the maintenance schedule.
