Road Maintenance

What we are asking

Our community continues to raise the declining condition of roads on the Mornington Peninsula as their number one concern. The most problematic roads, highlighted by our community, include many main arterial roads managed by the Victorian Government.

As a result, the Shire requests a review of how the Victorian Government is currently allocating its road maintenance budget. This approach would help to ensure an appropriate level of investment, and subsequent works on the ground to repair and resurface the worst Mornington Peninsula roads. Timely repair of potholes and delivery of rehabilitation and resurfacing work on our state-managed roads is critical to ensure residents and visitors can travel safely in and around the Peninsula.

What makes this unique

Over 80 per cent of the municipality lacks adequate public transport, making our community heavily reliant on cars. Consequently, road maintenance issues frequently appear in Shire customer satisfaction surveys, with consistently low scores.

However, many of the deteriorating roads consistently observed by our community, are managed by the Victorian Government. These include:

• Point Nepean Road
• Frankston-Flinders Road
• Mornington-Flinders Road
• Mornington-Tyabb Road
• Boneo Road
• Coolart Road
• Balnarring Road
• Marine Parade, Safety Beach
• Bittern-Dromana Road
• Mornington Peninsula Freeway

Not all roads are the Shire’s responsibility to manage, but our community expects us to respond and advocate for all roads in our municipality to be well maintained.

Why this is important

The provision of a safe and functional road network is a necessity for our 171,000 plus residents and 8 million annual visitors. State roads provide a gateway to the Mornington Peninsula and many of our towns. Roads play an integral part in creating a positive first impression for visitors, as well as connecting them with the huge number of incredible visitor experiences. This is in addition to being a crucial network that connects our residents to work, school and essential services.

The Shire manages 1,730km of roads, which is about the distance from Blairgowrie to Byron Bay, while the Victorian Government manages approximately 350km of roads on the Mornington Peninsula. State roads carry much higher traffic volumes than most Shire roads, resulting in potholes and other defects causing more serious safety issues and damage to cars.

Additionally, lack of maintenance on state-managed road corridors is affecting amenity. Community complaints reporting fallen signs, unsightly litter, long grass and inadequate maintenance of overgrown vegetation have surged.

Council recognises our community's concern about road maintenance being a shared problem and has significantly increased annual investment to manage Council roads. In the 2024/25 financial year, Council delivered ambitious rehabilitation and resurfacing works on thirty-five of its roads. In the same year, the Victorian Government delivered significant resurfacing works on one section of Mornington-Flinders Road.

In 2025/26, Council has budgeted for an additional thirty-four local roads to be improved.

The benefits - supporting evidence and strategies

Within the legislative context of the Local Government Act 2020 and to address community feedback, the Shire is investing more than ever in road maintenance, working smarter to get better results and has increased road funding this year by 72 per cent. Shire crews work year-round, using new materials and technology to continuously improve how Council delivers road maintenance across the Peninsula.

Advice from the Department of Transport and Planning in October 2024 confirmed only reactive road maintenance to repair defects, that constitute a ‘hazard’, will be delivered to state-managed roads. This has seen a significant reduction in Victorian government road maintenance investment on the Mornington Peninsula. This approach is not consistent with the Road Management Act 2004, to establish a coordinated management system for public road networks.

We need significantly more Victorian government investment on Peninsula roads and road corridors to prevent their worsening deterioration.