Ocean Drive, Lake Cathie is scheduled for an upgrade however Port Macquarie-Hastings Council has to secure funding for the future project. 

At its February meeting, Port Macquarie-Hastings Council moved a notice of motion from Cr Peter Alley to request that Ocean Drive and Hastings River Drive be reclassified from regional road to state road.

Cr Alley is also the Labor candidate for the state seat of Port Macquarie.

State roads are managed and financed by the NSW Roads and Maritime Services, while regional and local roads are managed and financed by councils.

The motion to upgrade the section of Miala Street to Fiona Crescent, as the highest priority construction stage was carried by council at the 2018 December meeting.

Prior to the meeting, Port Macquarie-Hastings Council invited residents to give feedback on the proposed design for safety and beautification upgrades. 

Council wanted the community to choose which section of the road should be planned for upgrade first.

Options included from Miala Street to Fiona Crescent; or from Fiona Crescent to Ernest Street.

At the time Lake Cathie resident Garry Roberts said the section between Miala Street and Fiona Crescent should take priority.

"We have no footpaths on either side of the road, no kerbs, guttering or stormwater control," he said.

"Properties on the west side of Ocean Drive and Fiona Crescent have their houses and garages flooded, plus the road is not aligned correctly within the road reserve.

Garry said residents have been pursuing the reconstruction works for over two decades.

In February, Lake Cathie Claire Briggs called for more consultation between the community and Port Macquarie-Hastings Council in relation to the proposed Ocean Drive upgrade.

In September 2018, Claire and other residents launched a petition 'to remove the future duplication to four lanes from the proposed Ocean Drive upgrade design'.

They also wrote submissions and had face to face meetings with the mayor and council staff.

Port Macquarie-Hastings Council acting mayor Lisa Intemann said road maintenance shouldn't just be the council's responsibility. 

"Growing populations like ours definitely need more funding assistance from the state (and federal) governments to build new assets such as roads," Cr Intemann said.  

Cr Intemann said it wasn't just about the state government throwing money at the problem.

Motoring organisation NRMA in February this year released its Funding Local Roads Report which found Port Macquarie-Hastings Council had an $80 million roads maintenance backlog.

The funding shortfall revealed as part of the report identifies a $2.2 billion backlog across NSW, with the overwhelming majority of the burden – $1.7 billion – falling to regional councils.

NRMA spokesperson Peter Khoury said one of the main recommendations in the report was reclassification of some major council roads like Hastings River Drive to state roads.

"We need to take the pressure off regional councils where clearly they don't have the revenue streams to meet the shortfall."

Mr Khoury commended current and former state and federal governments for fixing the Pacific Highway but said now the focus has to be local roads.

"They have done a good job of fixing some of the most dangerous roads in the country like the Pacific Highway ...now we need to do more for roads that don't get the headlines but are equally important to local communities."

Drusi Megett, Greens candidate

Road maintenance is one of those problems which is always with us. The money allocated to maintenance is never enough to fix the roads to a high standard. The Greens do understand that roads must be improved e.g. double lanes on main routes. New roads must be well-planned and not destroy the environment and people’s amenity.

The Greens plan to improve local road congestion by taking the pressure off. The Greens will fund more cycle ways and improve public transport. The NSW government has neglected cycling infrastructure, spending just 1% of the state’s annual transport budget on active transport – that’s compared to the UN’s recommendation of 20%.

The Greens are calling for: $250 million per year for a cycling infrastructure fund ($1 billion over four years) and active transport infrastructure to be mandatory in all major new road and transport projects. It’s time cycling and its infrastructure was considered with the importance placed on cars and roads.

Peter Alley, Labor candidate

Last month, the NRMA’s ‘Funding Local Roads’ report found that the Regional and Local Roads network, which encompasses 80 per cent of roads in NSW, was in a state of decline and failing to properly accommodate existing passenger and freight movements. The NRMA recommended that $900m be given to councils to bring these regional roads up to standard.

Labor accepts the NRMA recommendation and will invest an additional $900 million over five years to fix regional local roads that have been rated ‘very poor’ and ‘poor’ (if elected).

A Daley Labor Government will also conduct a review of road classification with a view to reclassify some regional roads to state roads. I will be nominating the Ocean Drive/Hastings River Drive corridor for consideration. This will enable maintenance funding that would have been spent on this corridor to be shifted to other road maintenance.

Together, these two things will make a significant dent in our backlog of roads maintenance.

Leslie Williams MP, Nationals candidate

Late last month the Liberals & Nationals Government announced that if re-elected, they will invest more than $1 billion to fix local roads, repair NSW’s iconic timber bridges and reclaim up to 15,000 kilometres of council roads.

We have so many local roads that are in urgent need of maintenance and they will be prioritised under Fixing Local Roads.

This funding will take a big load off our local ratepayers and Council. We will be able to clear our local roads maintenance backlogs, replace local timber bridges in poor condition and see those local roads classified in the ‘Regional Road Network transferred back to the State and able to be upgraded quicker.

Between 2011 and 2018, the State Government has provided almost $38 million to the Port Macquarie-Hastings Council to fund local road projects in our area including the majority of the funding for Stingray Creek Bridge.

On Thursday (March 14)  I committed another $50 million for the duplication of Ocean Drive (if the Coalition is re-elected).

Jan Burgess, Sustainable Australia

Local roads are an issue for most regional areas, particular in these times of increasing development and population growth.

Sustainable Australia’s policy is that infrastructure, including roads, should be built before new houses. Additional developer changes on gains made by rezoning, which is another of our policies, would assist in funding this.

Existing road problems do require additional funding and we would support any measure in State Government to increase funding available to local councils for this issue. We would also look to ensuring that all available road funding is in fact used.

Where cost shifting is occurring with roads (such as the old Pacific Highway), it is essential that additional funding is available from the State Government to cover the responsibility for additional maintenance.