Federal Member for Hume Angus Taylor has welcomed the passing through the Senate yesterday of Roads to Recovery funding for local councils.

“This is assurance for councils across Hume. They can plan for future road repair and local infrastructure projects, knowing there is a doubling of funding next financial year (2015/16) under the Roads to Recovery programme.

“Nationally, the Government has committed $2.1billion over the next five years to the programme.

“It is absolutely crucial to local councils that this funding source has been guaranteed. Labor and the Greens put up roadblocks to this legislation for five long months and there were serious concerns from local government over whether it would be blocked in the Senate.

“I told a meeting of CENTROC councils in Parliament House this week that local roads funding is a vital part of this Government’s huge infrastructure investment.

“In the short term, Roads to Recovery funding well compensates local councils for the pausing of the indexation of Financial Assistance Grants (FAGs). And further to FAGs funding, it is my understanding that the NSW Local Grants Commission has changed the formula for distributing the general purpose component of the grants to benefit rural and remote councils. Details are yet to come through.

“I have been working very closely with Hume mayors and general managers on this issue. It has been long recognised that rural and remote councils have been disadvantaged under the Financial Assistance Grants formula because they have had less ability to generate income (because of fewer ratepayers), compared to metropolitan councils.”

Mr Taylor added that the Federal Government had almost tripled the investment in the Black Spot Programme to $160 million a year in 2015/16 and 2016/17 and committed $300 million to the Bridges Renewal programme.