Councils receive more than $10 million to improve roads and infrastructure

More than $10 million has been committed across four councils through the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure program, with the City of Ballarat receiving more than $3 million.

Elsewhere, Moorabool Shire Council received $2.56 million, Hepburn Shire Council received $1.93 million and Golden Plains Shire Council received $2.66 million.

The funding can be spent by councils on a range of projects, including road maintenance, signage, lighting and footpaths.

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Ballarat mayor Daniel Moloney said the funding was timely with the city's roads under more pressure than ever.

"I think anyone who drives around Ballarat would know how much pressure our roads are currently under right now, so the support from all tiers of governments is going to be crucial as part of a growing city like ours and it's particularly great to see the federal contribution," he said.

"It's been that incredible combination of increased traffic volumes as well as longer, wetter periods that wouldn't normally expect to go as deep into the year as we have this year that have had a pretty major impact on all the roads."

Cr Moloney said council was still working on its project priorities for the funding, but it would go towards significant works, such as the also recently funded projects around Gillies Street or Cuthberts Road, rather than additional maintenance.

"The pothole works will continue under our local council budget and continue to catch that up because it's been a mammoth effort over the very long winter we've had. These particular project works from a federal government perspective, though, we are really targeting those areas that are requiring some more significant reconstruction," he said.

Moorabool Shire mayor Tom Sullivan said roads and other infrastructure underpins a lot of the shire's economic development.

"To see that investment in that infrastructure is a positive contribution to our local economy but also to the wider economy as well," he said.

"Intervention is the big thing on roads. When they start to deteriorate, if you let them continue, even if it's only for a matter of months, the work that then needs to rehabilitate them is far greater, so that intervention level is critical. I think opportunities like this afford us to get a better outcome than if we had to leave it to later before the roads actually almost disintegrate," he said.

"I think the wet year we've had just has accentuated the problems with the road infrastructure and I think that's why this contribution or this grants funding is welcome, because it provides not an opportunity to hopefully get on top of some of those road assets which have been deteriorating."

While previous funding from this program had been used on Hepburn Shire roads, mayor Lesley Hewitt said this third round would be used to improve the shire's footpath network.

"It brings forward what we can do in terms of developing footpaths, which our community wants, particularly making towns and areas more accessible for everybody, but particularly the elderly and people with disabilities, so it's great," she said.

"You could make the point that it's important for accessibility for our elderly, for people with disabilities, for people with small children, all of that kind of thing. It's really a good community accessibility thing to encourage people to get out and about in the community."

With Ballarat and regional Victoria going through an especially wet and cold winter which has progressed well into November, many roads have suffered from extensive potholing which has been hard for councils to keep up with.

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However, retired civil engineer Michael Knowles said part of the problem was the poor quality of some of the maintenance works being undertaken on these roads.

Mr Knowles, who has 50 years of engineering experience including running road maintenance programs, said patch works on potholes were no thorough enough to last more than a few weeks.

"It's the working method that is used. These guys at the moment with their truck and their couple of shovels and whatever go around and they literally throw some material in the pothole and whack it with the back of the shovel, that's it. That is simply, absolutely not what should be done," he said.

"Also, they often do it in wet weather and they don't use any sort of compaction equipment, they don't use any sort of a blower to blow out the old material before they put the new material in, they don't shape the hole so it can bind and bond the filler material.

"Let's say the roads are reasonably well-built. You're going to get potholes. No contractor building a road can be 100 per cent perfect in the compaction of the base, etc., so there will always be failures, weak spots and they will develop into potholes. There's not much you can do except fill the pothole properly."

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