The City of Ballarat was aware of the road defects or failures which led to recent "emergency works" on the Ballarat Link Road as far back as mid-last year but failed to act, new correspondence has revealed.
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The major council-owned road was closed between the Blind Creek Road and Airport Drive roundabouts for emergency works on two occasions in June, with notice limited to a brief social media post on the City of Ballarat Facebook page.
In response to questions from The Courier, the City of Ballarat subsequently blamed the "surface level repairs" - which costs ratepayers in the order of $100,000 - on what it implied were defective Victorian government road engineering standards.
"The road asphalt [layer] was constructed at a depth of 40mm, consistent with the required standards appropriate in 2018 [and] is the reason the repairs are needed," a council spokesperson said, adding that the repairs were "not weather-related".
In correspondence seen by The Courier, however, it transpires the initial road defects which gave rise to the June emergency works were observed by the City of Ballarat last winter, but not attended to due to budget constraints.
"The failures [on the Link Road] were noticed in 2021 over the winter period," wrote council's director of infrastructure and environment Bridget Wetherall on July 26 in correspondence sent to all councillors.
"At this time, we did not have the repairs included in the major patching program for 2021/22.
"Funding was included for the repair[s] in the 2022/23 financial year and delivered as soon as possible."
The statement is at least partially at odds with assurances given by City of Ballarat chief executive Evan King in June, who said council's road maintenance team was "out in force" fixing road defects, such as potholes, "as they appear".
Amin Soltani, a Federation University civil engineering expert, said it was highly probable the June emergency works - which consisted of short-term patching works pending more permanent repairs - owed entirely to council's decision to postpone the repairs.
"Damage obviously doesn't heal itself," he said. "Whenever you have initial damage to a road surface that's exposed to traffic - especially if you go beyond passenger vehicles and take into account heavy trucks - [the damage or defect] is going to get a lot worse."
"Emergency works," he went on to explain, by definition, typically involve any road defect that is "deemed by a group of engineers to cause serious discomfort to road users or to prevent road users from being able to control their vehicles."
Noting this, Dr Soltani criticised council's method for road maintenance, which he said was arguably too reactive, at least so far as it appeared to be underpinned by a strategy that, by design, defers rectification of failures on major roads according to the "availability of funds".
He also levelled criticism at council's insistence that the defects on the Link Road were referable to state government road engineering standards.
It's really not good practice to blame a document for bad road engineering; the standards we use for road engineering, at the end of day, only provide guidelines - it's not a bible.
- Federation University civil engineering expert, Dr Amin Soltani
"It's really not good practice to blame a document for bad road engineering," he said. "The standards we use for road engineering, at the end of day, only provide guidelines - it's not a bible.
"It's the responsibility of council and the road engineers to interpret those standards and modify them so they are tailored to the unique problems, climate conditions or environmental factors of the area; that's why you hire engineers after all - they're not meant to blindly follow the standards."
On Thursday the Department of Transport told The Courier that its road engineering standards, which guided the City of Ballarat's construction of the Link Road, derived their content from the national road design guidelines and, importantly, were grounded in the assumption "that construction will be undertaken to appropriate standards".
As recently reported in The Courier, an Ombudsman report into the City of Ballarat two years ago concluded that the person responsible for overseeing the construction of the Link Road - an 80-year-old close acquaintance of then director of infrastructure and environment Terry Demeo - was appointed in breach of council's recruitment policy.
The same Ombudsman report also disclosed contemporaneous concerns about the person's medical fitness to serve as site supervisor.
On Friday, in response to questions put by The Courier, Ms Wetherall denied the Link Road emergency works undertaken in June had been delayed with a view to budget constraints.
"The City of Ballarat has never neglected maintenance work required on [the] Link Road due to budget constraints," she said, adding that the defects observed were "minor failures" detected during routine quarterly maintenance inspections.
"In mid-2022, further inspections were undertaken of the Link Road, which identified the need to bring forward patching works that were originally scheduled for the end of 2022.
"These failures were deteriorating quicker than expected and, as such, the works were immediately completed in June 2022.
"We do not blame the state government for the [road engineering] standards changing over time."
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