The Federal Government has been urged to continue funding for a program aimed at repairing timber bridges throughout Queensland, and the rest of Australia.

Local councils have joined the Australian Local Government Association to call for permanency of the Federal Bridges Renewal Program, to help fix the roughly one in five timber bridges throughout the country in poor condition.

The findings came out of the 2018 National State of the Assets: Roads and Community Infrastructure Report launched today at the National Local Roads and Transport Congress in Alice Springs.

ALGA president David O’Loughlin said that despite increased investment to renew bridges and the continued effort of councils to extend the life of their ageing assets, the backlog of bridges in poor condition remained largely unchanged.

“Councils are doing their best to bring these bridges up to a reasonable condition, but this report shows that the scale of the problem is beyond the current resources and revenue streams available to them,” Cr O’Loughlin said.

“The bridges renewal program has proved to be a very successful and important partnership between the Commonwealth and councils to improve road safety and freight productivity (and) more than 205 local bridges have been fixed using about $120 million of Commonwealth funding.

“Councils are keen to continue this partnership to deliver this important work and are calling for the program to be made permanent.”

More than 400 councils across Australia provided data for the assets report. (Access the full report HERE)