Tweed Shire Council is taking a firm stand on the issue of road maintenance responsibility by refusing to accept the reclassification of the old highway at Sexton Hill as a local road by the NSW Government.
The NSW Department of Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) classifies arterial and sub-arterial roads within major urban centres of over 100,000 population as state and regional roads and provides funding for their maintenance.
The RMS has informed the Council that, with a population of just over 90,000, the Tweed does not qualify as a major urban centre and must maintain urban arterial roads within its boundaries.
However, Mayor of Tweed Barry Longland said councillors are unanimous in the view that the Tweed forms a geographically continuous urban area with the Gold Coast, with a population of more than 600,000.
“The Tweed is the largest growth area in the State and no account is being given to already approved developments which will take us well over the 100,000 mark,” Councillor Longland said.
”We have funded the expansion of our own arterial road network through Section 94 developer contributions but these are proving to be insufficient to the growth we need, forcing us to delay projects such as the badly needed upgrade of Kennedy Drive.
“We are also in the situation of having to build our own highway interchanges like the one at Kirkwood Road, which makes us unique across the State.”
The RMS has also informed council staff that the last review of road classifications was completed in 2009 and these are traditionally done only every 10 years, meaning the next time they will review the situation is in 2019.
Council representatives have been working through local state members Geoff Provest and Thomas George to obtain a meeting with the Minister for Roads and Ports, Duncan Gay, but Cr Longland said they had been frustrated in their efforts so far.
Mr Provest said he would be talking to the Minister this week about the situation but declined to comment further at this stage.
“We were quite surprised to learn, after the fact, that the Minister was in the Tweed just the other day to open the northbound Pacific Highway bypass at Sexton Hill,” Cr Longland said.
“We know he is aware of this issue and that we have been seeking a meeting. It’s a real shame he didn’t take the opportunity while he was here.
“Accepting the handover of the highway at Sexton Hill would represent a substantial maintenance cost, without providing any real benefit to our road network and we simply don’t have the resources to agree to this.”
