STATE government help could be on the way to help maintain the road taking a large proportion of the region’s heavy traffic, but it is still expected to take some time.
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Councillor Glenn Taylor used an Orange City Council meeting to query what help had been offered for the Northern Distributor Road.
“Anyone who wants to take a trip out there and have a look, any time of day, or night – start counting the trucks,” he said.
“We are carrying the state government’s traffic, that is unambiguous, that is a fact.”
We are paying the bills now.
- Councillor Glenn Taylor
Acting technical services director Wayne Gailey said NSW Roads and Maritime Services had advised the council it would consider giving the NDR regional status.
“Which means that it will co-contribute to the ongoing maintenance costs and upgrades of that road,” he said.
“That process doesn’t happen in five minutes, in fact it would have been 10 years plus since they’ve done a review of their regional roads so while they’ve put it on the table, it’s not something that’s going to happen tomorrow.”
Orange City Council has on several occasions lobbied the state government to help maintain the road.
Then-member for Orange Andrew Gee called the road “the Violet Crumble”, while previous roads minister Duncan Gay held firm and said it was a local road.
Cr Taylor cautiously welcomed the progress but said he wasn’t holding his breath.
“We are paying the bills now,” he said.
He said the state government needed to contribute some funds considering the most recent government funding was in the Rudd-Gillard years and the council had spent more than $6 million to hot-mix the stretch.
“It’s about time they kicked the can,” he said.
An RMS spokeswoman said the statewide review process for road reclassification of roads was expected to be carried out “in the near future” as part of the NSW Government’s Future Transport 2056 Strategy.
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