Hume council will write to Roads and Road Safety Minister Melissa Horne, requesting regular maintenance service of roundabouts and median strips in Hume, and the removal of disgraceful graffiti in Sunbury.
Councillor Jack Medcraft raised the notice of motion at a meeting on May 13, requesting that council asks VicRoads to commit to a regular maintenance service including edging, and clean the graffiti on the cutting of Vineyard Road and Macedon Street, Sunbury.
It was also requested in the letter to Ms Horne that the Department of Transport and Planning clean off the graffiti on the railway bridge across Station Street in Sunbury.
Cr Medcraft the graffiti is an “insult” and “disgrace” and he would like to see it be painted over or removed.
“I think these are basic requests,” he said.
“It’s an insult and really I find it offensive … to graffiti over artwork that tells a story of Aboriginal history.”
Moving to the roundabouts on Macedon Street, Cr Medcraft said he took actions into his own hands and cut the Elizabeth Drive roundabout, while an unknown local mowed another roundabout.
“People are so fed up, they’re taking it on themselves,” he said.
Cr Joseph Haweil said the issue of regular maintenance service of roundabouts and median strips is an issue that goes beyond Hume.
“It is an issue relating to the state government allocated budget for arterial and state government road maintenance across … Victoria,” he said.
“Year in and year out, we have seen insufficient funding allocated to the department of transport or VicRoads to be able to maintain those roads to the standard in which we expect.
“This is something that now needs to be taken up at the state leve l… to bring some collective weight to our advocacy.
“I think the process of boiling it down to one roundabout at a time or one street at a time, across various councils … probably isn’t helping.
“It may get those matters resolved, but what is incumbent upon us, I think, is to take a statewide approach to this.”
Zoe Moffatt
