Minister for Regional Roads Sam Farraway takes aim at 'keyboard warriors' as Cargo Road meetings continue

Speaking to the Central Western Daily about the state of roads across the region, Mr Farraway said if people had issues with local or state roads they should contact the appropriate authorities.

"Keyboard warriors on Facebook isn't really going to help the situation. We're not going to fill more potholes by more people complaining about it," Mr Farraway said.

"If it's a local road, ring your local council and get them to get their local crews out there to fix potholes. If there's damage to state roads and highways ring Transport for NSW, alert them to the issue.

"By working together we can make sure that roads remain open and connected."

Relentless wet weather across the Central West has exacerbated issues on our roads, with the now infamous Cargo Road the subject of numerous complaints to this publication.

State Member for Orange Phil Donato last month told the Daily he had written to the Minister for Regional Roads and spoke in NSW Parliament as to the state of the road.

In a Private Members Bill, Mr Donato said the state government had a "duty of care" to the road, which is managed by Cabonne Shire Council.

"Cargo Road has been a safety issue for many years, at least 20 from my recollection. In that time dozens of serious motor vehicle accidents have occurred and, tragically, fatalities as well," he said.

"Over the past several months I have made numerous representations about the road to the Minister for Regional Transport and Roads as well as Cabonne Council.

"The response has so far failed to remedy the situation. The Government has a duty of care to the road-using public to ensure that roads are as safe as possible, free of existing and foreseeable risks."

Mr Farraway said while he hadn't spoken to Mr Donato on the issue, meetings between Cabonne Shire and Transport for NSW were underway.

"Cabonne has a pretty extensive local road network and there's certainly some challenges with Cargo Road and other roads around the region where we all need to work together in order to get them back up to scratch," he said.

"I haven't heard personally from the Member for Orange. I believe he may have written to me but I have already instructed Transport for NSW to meet directly with Cabonne Council. They did that on September 26. They are meeting again on Monday, October 10.

"It's important that if they do need assistance with resources that they don't have at their disposal, whether that's project management or geotechnical work or technical advice, we are prepared to assist with that.

"I've received Facebook messages, emails about Cargo Road and as soon as I received that correspondence I instructed Transport for NSW to meet with Cabonne Shire."

The Minister said drier conditions would assist with road repair and upgrades but disputed the suggestion that more funding was needed, offering the recent safety upgrades on the Mitchell Highway as evidence.

"What's challenging is there's been significant damage to the road network," he said.

"What we need to do is fix those potholes over the course of 2022, look for some drier weather but we have a plan. The funding is there to support local government.

"It's fair to say while we have had challenges around weather we are also achieving results and new infrastructure such as the Guyong safety upgrades. We had to divert some of those crews to Lismore but they returned and we have since gotten cracking.

"We have still achieved a lot but we won't have the roads fixed overnight."

Mr Farraway also urged motorists to take it easy over the weekend with extensive rainfall forecast for the region.

"If it's flooded, forget it," he said.

"We've seen that tragic loss of life near Tullamore, I don't want to see any more of that. We need the community to be sensible on our roads, drive to conditions and just allow more time getting from A to B."