Local roads and stormwater drainage are two of the priorities Parkes Shire Council has identified in its 10-year draft strategic asset management plan, now on exhibition for community comment.
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Council has identified a need to spend $1.35 million a year on rural sealed roads, $0.93 million a year on urban streets, and maintain at least $0.8million on unsealed roads.
Within that, the plan highlights the need to reseal 244km of sealed local roads over the next eight years "as top priority".
If this isn't done, the strategy warns, "the result will be costly premature failure of pavements".
There's 16km of rural road and 4km of urban road that need full rehabilitation as well as 90km of rural edging and 21km of urban shoulder. There's also 15km of kerb and guttering that has failed and needs to be replaced in the next 10 years.
The strategy identifies the need to develop a table drain clearing program by 2023 to help with road condition, and the need to carry out minor culvert inspections for the entire road network by 2025.
"There is insufficient funds to meet community expectations," is the bad news on unsealed rural roads - the topic of separate discussion at the May council meeting.
The strategy recommends prioritising roads with higher traffic, with "minimum service levels" identified on lower traffic roads.
When it comes to stormwater drainage, the strategy states that, "the capacity of existing networks is inadequate".
"This leads to localised flooding issues in addition to broader flooding issues (floodplain, not drainage) in most towns and villages," the document says.
One of the problems is the lack of information on the condition of the stormwater drainage network, and by the end of 2023 the council aims to finalise analysis of urban drainage capacity issues and develop a prioritised works program for consideration by the council.
The plan is to undertake a CCTV inspection program on a five per cent sample of the network, focussing on the areas most likely to have problems.
The document also covers council's future priorities for:
- Water and sewerage infrastructure;
- Plant and equipment;
- Waste management; and
- Buildings and amenities.
Just a few of the other needs identified include refurbishing or replacing public toilets, replacing barbecues, a new Trundle library and new playgrounds at Kelly, Lions, Arboretum and Pac parks.
You can view the plan on Parkes Shire Council's yoursay website and have your say through to June 14.
