EPLGA Address to 2004 National Local Roads Congress
Monday 12 July 2004
Mr Vance Thomas
Executive Officer
Eyre Peninsula Local Government Association
Eyre Peninsula needs a huge canvas, so some pretty broad brush strokes need to be applied.
In the western coastal region of South Australia, it covers a patch about the size of Tasmania. Its area is 72,000 square kilometres, of which 39% is unincorporated (or out of council).
Port Lincoln to Border Village equates to Melbourne to Sydney via the Hume Highway. Ceduna is located further away from Adelaide than Melbourne.
Including the Spencer Gulf city of Whyalla, its population is 55,000, give or take a few resolute, resourceful and resilient souls (4.0% of State). To give you some idea of the sparseness of our region, on average, every man, women and child has a sand pit of 130 hectares to play in.
It is a big, bold productive region of great natural beauty.
Yet Eyre Peninsula is an enigma. It is an opportunity-rich region of considerable diversity.
Per capita, Eyre Peninsula is a most productive region, generating in an average year:
As a direct result of its vast size, remote location, sparse population and high operating costs, the kingdom of Eyre is seriously infrastructure challenged.
Whether it be water, power, roads, freight, waste, jetties, public transport or natural resource management - we pay a quadruple penalty for just about everything we do.
How does that effect local government on Eyre Peninsula?
| Council | Population areaKm2 | Roads(km) | Sealed roads(km) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eyre region | ||||
| Ceduna (DC) | 3,625 | 5,445 | 1,699 | 40 |
| Cleve (DC) | 1,914 | 4,498 | 1,435 | 28 |
| Elliston (DC) | 1,152 | 6,693 | 1,146 | 28 |
| Franklin Harbour (DC) | 1,309 | 3,283 | 933 | 17 |
| Kimba (DC) | 1,205 | 3,975 | 1,704 | 22 |
| Le Hunte (DC) | 1,452 | 5,381 | 1,822 | 26 |
| Lower Eyre (DC) | 4,258 | 4,763 | 1,354 | 51 |
| Streaky Bay (DC) | 2,000 | 6,251 | 1,720 | 41 |
| Tumby Bay (DC) | 2,618 | 2,674 | 1,105 | 32 |
| Port Lincoln 1 | 4,049 | 32 | 151 | 141 |
| Whyalla | 21,903 | 1,034 | 268 | 196 |
| Port Augusta | 13,593 | 1,193 | 407 | 165 |
| Total EPLGA region (EP/Spencer Gulf) | 69,078 | 45,222 | 13,744 | 787 |
| Average EPLGA Council | 5,757 | 3,769 | 1,145 | 66 |
| Total SA | 1,511,510 | 155,873 | 74,013 | 10,532 |
| Average SA Council | 22,228 | 2,292 | 1,088 | 155 |
Data - SALGGC 2001/02 financial year
Let me make one thing perfectly clear - whilst I know a bit about local government, economic development and tourism on Eyre Peninsula, I know bugger-all about the technical side of making and maintaining roads.
I notice a couple of our Works Managers in the audience today, so any questions of a technical nature, forgive me if I re-direct.
Eyre Peninsula/Spencer Gulf has a local road network of 14,000 kilometres, 94% unsealed. That equates to close to 18% of South Australia's roads being maintained by 4% of its people.
Consider the formidable task of our nine District Councils. They look after 13000km of roads (17.5% of South Australia's total, 97% unsealed), with a population of less than 2% of the State's total.
Some of those councils are spending in excess of 100% of their total rate revenue on road construction, road works, patrol grading and other road related maintenance.
Eyre Peninsula's councils maintain a network of local roads that would circle Australia via Highway One and still leave a fair stretch of bumpy, dusty road left over.
We are solidly behind our Local Government Association of SA in their long running fight for a more equitable share of Commonwealth local road funding, with particular reference to the Fair Federal Funding: Fix SA Local Roads campaign.
We might be a bit slow on Eyre Peninsula, but when we look at SA having roughly 11% of the roads and 8% of the population - a 5.5% slice of the funding cake just does not add up.
Using road and population indicators, we reckon a number of around 8-9% would be fair.
And if South Australia is the poor relation, Eyre Peninsula must surely be the consumptive cousin.
Equity in local road funding has been at the top of our regional agenda for a decade, with major submissions to the Commonwealth Grants Commission on the Financial Assistance Act in 2001 and a similar inquiry on Local Government and Cost Shifting in 2002.
In more recent times, we lobbied SA Members of Federal Parliament on what we identify as inequities in the Commonwealth local road grant funding regime, to increase awareness on this critical issue.
A strong regional heartbeat needs to be serviced by strong, healthy arteries.
This Program plays an integral role in helping local government on Eyre Peninsula build and maintain its commercial infrastructure, and by crikey, we need all the help we can get.
Of course, we would like to see a bucket with a bit more depth, but given the quantum of funding, we believe the Local Roads Advisory Committee (with support from SA Local Government Grants Commission) have the guidelines, the criteria and the methodology pretty much under control.
I am pleased to report that by the Year 2007/8 (at current rates of funding), those major arteries along Bratten Way and Kimba/Cowell will be pretty much stitched up.
Benefits generated by R2R Program to Eyre Peninsula
We like Roads to Recovery notwithstanding the fact that it has a simple, equitable focus of direct line funding from one tier of government to another.
Local decision-making has enabled our region to implement road-funding works in a manner that is effective, equitable and consistent with council's program objectives.
It has enabled much needed development maintenance to be completed that would be totally beyond the means of traditional council budgets, accelerating capital roadwork programs by several years.
It should be pointed out that alongside size, distance and population, changing industry trends and technologies have added to the task:
Two decades ago, roads were built to accommodate 8-tonne farm trucks. Now they have to cope with modern road trains of 60 plus tonnes.
Likewise, tourism. In the past 15 years, our visitation numbers have escalated from 206,000 to 455,000 visitors per annum. Based on average length of stay of 4.6 nights, that equates to an additional 5,734 visitors or 17.4% over and above the local population using our roads.
Direct funding, simple administration and equitable allocation are seen as key features of the R2R program.
Maintaining our regional road network to minimum standards could not be achieved without the supplementary support of programs such as Roads to Recovery.
We look forward to the Roads to Recovery 2 guidelines to be released in late 2004, particularly that second bucket relating to infrastructure projects of regional significance.
One thing that develops a best-practice mindset is when your task outstrips the available resources by a country mile. You have no alternative to get your priorities right.
In times gone by, our regional road priorities were determined by what's fair, whose turn or who lobbied the most effectively (sometimes a combination of all three).
We needed a plan. A practical and pragmatic road and transport strategy to provide a safe, efficient and cost effective network of roads and transport for community, commercial and visitor traffic over the next two decades.
Project was funded by a $90K grant from Commonwealth Roads to Recovery Program.
Like two mating elephants - it was conceived at a high level, with much trumpeting and bellowing, a gestation period of two years and with a difficult delivery that required a couple of stitches.
In all, the final report contains close to two hundred pages of road and transport data, maps, priorities, actions and guidelines. Our Association adopted the report in Sept. 2003.
Over 100 copies of Volumes 1 and 2 of Eyre Peninsula Road and Transport Strategy were dispatched to key stakeholders all over Australia.
Core Strategies - Eyre Peninsula Road and Transport Strategy
- Needs analysis of future economic development within region
- Criteria to assess of road and transport infrastructure across region.
- Review of road and transport policies across 3 tiers of government
- Consultation/assessment of existing road networks and transport within region
- Integrated approach to the future management of road and transport networks
- Employment and community opportunities at both the regional and state level.
- Incorporate inter-regional road and transport strategies.
- Practical guidelines and criteria for future road funding priorities.
- Identify and assess existing and historic reports, studies and data.
The aims were simple:
Our consultant identified early that although the evaluation mechanism to for regional road priorities was sound, there was a scarcity of relevant traffic/transport data in certain areas.
Our Road and Transport Strategy Working Party reconvened on 25th of last month to develop protocols to be used in the collection and application of further traffic data, to be utilised in subsequent and regular reviews of Eyre Peninsula's regional road priorities.
We hope that those protocols will also evolve into best practice models. We are happy to share the lessons we learn along the way.
They said it could not be done.
Picture this!
A rickety run down rail network, local roads being hammered, major traffic congestion in Port Lincoln and 2.3 million tonnes of grain to be transported from paddock to Panamax.
It happens every summer on EP. Tonnage is expected to increase to 3 million by 2010.
It is the region's biggest economic driver, generating a billion dollars in economic activity each year and employing close to a third of the region's workforce.
If the rail network should ever fall over, it would take 57,500 B-doubles to shift the load. The thought doesn't even bear thinking about!
So the task was to put all of the key stakeholders in one room and get consensus on how to build a better mousetrap. Place - Cummins Institute. Date - 25 October last year.
Communiqué - EP Grain Transport Summit
From this day onwards, the key stakeholders in the Eyre Peninsula grain transport industry (Grain growers, rail and road carriers, bulk handlers, grain marketers, local government and regional economic development), set themselves the challenge of developing a safe, viable, self-sustaining and globally competitive transport system to deliver the region's annual harvest for paddock to port.
This goal is to be achieved in a spirit of cooperation, coordination and commitment between the core players, the people of Eyre Peninsula and its key regional organisations, with support from relevant government agencies in both the state and federal arenas.
As you can see from the communiqué, we achieved our first objective.
That was followed up with a meeting in Adelaide in January. Every sector was represented.
Stakeholders include Australian Railroad Group, AusBulk, AWB Limited, ABB Grain, South Australian Freight Council, Transport SA, PIRSA, Office of Infrastructure Development, Commonwealth DOTARS, EPLGA and Eyre Regional Development Board. All have pledged funds for this grain transport strategy amounting to some $60,000.
The project brief Eyre Peninsula Grain Transport Integration and Investment Plan has now finetuned to a stage where it has achieved broad industry and agency acceptance.
Strategic Design and Development have been engaged to implement the brief.
I reckon this initiative might be a worthy candidate for an infrastructure project of regional significance under the R2R2 program.
Thank you
12 July 2004
Mr Vance Thomas
For information about the Congress, please contact Robin Anderson, ALGA Director, Transport Policy.
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