With a wet winter leading to a greater number of potholes and an increase in complaints from the community, council said it had been using the summer to repair as many of the city's roads while the weather was good.

Council had seen a 36 per cent increase in pothole enquiries with 2550 complaints received in 2021, a 36 per cent increase on 2020 and an 18 per cent increase on 2019.

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Work began on one of the busiest council-managed roads, Wendouree Parade, on Tuesday with major patching work taking place between Forest Street and Nursery Drive. Those works are expected to be completed by Friday.

The $3.4 million spend is part of council's 2021-22 budget and is an increase of $500,000 over previous years with $1.4 million spent on asphalting and stabilisation works and $2 million spent on a resealing program.

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Council is spending $190,000 of that budget on the Wendouree Drive works, which will repair 5200 square metres of damaged road.

Ballarat mayor Daniel Moloney said council had not been able to make sufficient repairs to its roads due to the wet winter.

"What you'll see happen during the winter months is just the basic patchwork and patches only last so long, so to actually do these larger sections in a more strategic way is important to make sure this lasts the longer period," he said.

"This year, we've already acknowledged that we've had to increase the budget in terms of ongoing road maintenance. We're talking about more cars on Ballarat roads, about a thousand extra cars per annum added to our traffic, which has a cumulative impact on local roads."

Cr Moloney said council had heard the community loud and clear regarding the state of the roads.

"It's been such a wet winter period and the combination of wet weather plus a huge increase in traffic does mean more potholes and, understandably, more people raising those issues with it," he said.

"It's a really contentious issue throughout the wet months, in particular. We've got to be acknowledging those things and putting more investment toward it, but it's also just part of an ongoing need for a growing city."

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Cr Moloney said there would only be more pressure placed on the city's roads as Ballarat continues to grow, with some council roads likely being transferred to state government control.

"One of those classic examples for us is Dyson Drive, which is technically a local suburban road, not that you'd realise it. It takes about 10,000 cars a day and is now going from local road to arterial road status and, with that, I think we will start to see more and more local roads transition from local government councils through to state government control and that's the nature for all big, growing cities like Ballarat.

"We'll be continuing to work and integrate what we do with RRV because they control the arterial roads and I think it's important that anyone out driving doesn't care whether it's a local road or a state government road, they just want to see potholes fixed so that partnership with the state government is important."