Sunbury MP Josh Bull has called out Hume council for walking away from an agreement with the state government.
Mr Bull took to Facebook to call on council to immediately re-enter the Minor Maintenance Agreement with the Department of Transport and Planning (DTP), which ended in October 2022.
“The agreement ensured the best outcome for our local road maintenance and Hume City Council should have never withdrawn from it,” he said.
“For some time, I have been asking our council to come back to the table and fix this issue.
“I am again calling on Hume City Council to immediately engage in constructive discussion, re-enter this agreement and fix a problem that is causing significant concern across our community – anything less is unacceptable.”
After the agreement ended, Cr Naim Kurt brought a notice of motion to the 10 February council meeting to investigate the option of resuming council-led maintenance of median strip and roundabout vegetation on state-managed arterial roads.
This investigation was then brought to the 11 August council meeting, where councillors were deadlocked in deciding if they should resume maintenance of arterial roads.
After the original recommendation that aimed to resolve that the maintenance was the responsibility of DTP was lost, an alternative recommendation was forwarded by Cr Kate Hamley that resolved to refer re-entering the agreement with DTP to the 2026-27 budget.
This recommendation only passed as former mayor Cr Jarrod Bell used his casting vote after another deadlock.
Mayor Carly Moore said council left the agreement due to the rising costs.
“Council previously undertook selected maintenance activities on arterial roads under an agreement with DTP. This required council to undertake works on DTP’s behalf,” she said.
“However, rising costs created a substantial funding shortfall between the amount contributed by DTP and the actual service delivery costs, a gap which council would need to cover. This gap, along with liability concerns led to the end of the arrangement.
“We will continue to advocate for increased maintenance funding from the state government to ensure arterial road standards align with the expectations of the Hume community.”
