'Impossible and dangerous': Potholes wreak havoc in Queanbeyan-Palerang area

Tarago resident Julie Gray uses Tarago Road everyday to get to work in Gungahlin and said the road has been full of pothole for two years.

"Because it is a rural road, it is even worse," she said.

Julie said the potholes have been so bad they have ruined the suspension in her car and ripped up one of her friend's tyres.

She said the damage is made worse by trucks that use the road and the council has done anything to fix the potholes.

The Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council has invested $3 million in "rehabilitation and widening of Tarago Road from Mt Fairy Road" heading north on Tarago Road and Bungendore Road which will include "road realignment, pavement rehabilitation, stormwater improvements and guardrail".

But Julie said no actual work on the road has been done to fix the immediate issue of potholes and the council is "spending millions of dollars putting all this cloth everywhere but not actually digging any road up".

"This is all just just been rubbished and pulled down and nothing's been done on the road," she said.

Julie does acknowledge the council needs funding to fix roads but also said "they just don't allocate any funds whatsoever, they've just left it because it's a country road".

Sue Murray, President of the Braidwood Community Association said roads around the area are in very poor condition and have stopped her from driving.

"Some of them are almost impossible and dangerous," she said.

"Even the Kings Highway is actually starting to fall apart. It's essential to keep that functional. Potholes have gotten worse over the last couple of weeks on the Kings Highway."

"Most of the roads out of town, into the villages and over to Cooma, Cooma Road, are in very poor condition. Araluen Road has landslips that have been being fixed for months."

She said staff from the Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council attended a community meeting where they said the council is "very short staffed in the infrastructure department" and needs more state and federal funding.

Mayor of Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council Kenrick Winchester said the destroyed roads were an issue but "we've had unprecedented amounts of rain and no chance for the roads to dry so we can get out and attempt to fix them properly, like a lot of them need reconstruction".

The NSW state government has given regional local councils $50m for "pothole relief", but Mayor Winchester said "it was a good start but it's not going to fully address the issues".

The council said it is working on repairing patches on the Kings Highway, working on Reidsdale Road in preparation for stabilising, heavy patching on Captains Flat Road, and pothole repairs wherever resources are available.

They also said crews including additional contracted crews, funded through disaster recovery funding are working on unsealed roads, and construction teams are also working on various jobs including Cooma Road, Goulburn Road, Nerriga Road/Kings Highway intersection, Tarago Road, Braidwood Rec Grounds and Araluen Street

Local Government NSW, an organisation representing local councils, declared a statewide roads emergency on Thursday.

NSW mayors and councillors called on the state and federal government to increase roads funding after "successive floods and torrential rain events, coupled with chronic funding constraints, has caused $2.5 billion in road damages and caused a collapse of the local and regional road network".

LGNSW President Darriea Turley said that without additional funding, the state of roads would get worse.

"Road repair funding pledged to date has fallen well short of what is required so we're declaring this statewide roads emergency to get help before the situation becomes even worse," she said.

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