SUB PAR: Matthews Avenue resident Garry Ozols believes it is only a matter of time before the pothole in front of his home reappears because of “sub par” work to resurface the road. Photo: CLARE COLLEY.
WHEN trucks and road plant equipment rolled into Garry Ozols’s street to resurface the road less than two weeks ago the Matthews Avenue resident expected the potholes in front of his home to be a distant memory.
But immediately after the contractors finished the work Mr Ozols noticed the dips in the road already starting to reappear.
“While the speed of the work could not be faulted and the finished surface is well above the usual standards ... I do not consider the work anything more than a Band-Aid,” he said.
“None of the existing potholes were filled so the new work still has the dips from the potholes visible.”
“The potholes will just reappear in very short time due to continued impacts from traffic.”
Further down the street the road also dips where a trench was cut to connect services to the Housing Plus units finished earlier in the year.
Mr Ozols fears it will soon cause more potholes as the rebound effect from vehicles driving through the dip attacks the substructure of the already compromised road surface.
He believes the street is just one example of Orange City Council’s “sub par road works” and the techniques used to resurface the roads which he says are nothing more than a waste of rates and resources.
“A drive around Bathurst will amply display how road repairs are supposed to be done, they cut the old pothole out of the road, replace and re-pack the sub base and then use hot mix to replace the road surface,” he said.
“While our council sends a jet packer around to blow tar and gravel into water filled holes and expects a similar result.”
But council spokesman Nick Redmond defended the repair technique saying council decided to resurface the road instead of rehabilitating it after assessing the road’s base.
“There is a whole heap of different ways to do stuff,” he said.
“Road building organisations across Australia use the method we used here. There was no problem with the method.”
He admitted there were “a couple of spots” that needed to be repaired including the trench and pothole in front of Mr Ozols’s home.
Mr Ozols criticised council staff for signing off on the shoddy workmanship.
“They’re talking about spending all this money and increasing the budget to fix the roads properly then this happens,” he said.
But Mr Redmond said it was “standard procedure” to go back and check the work.
“Part of the assessment is that you go back and have a look,” he said.
“If the road base is predominately in good shape you don’t rehabilitate it.”
clare.colley@fairfaxmedia.com.au