Wagga Wagga City Council is asking motorists to take extra care on our roads as patching crews work to fill the potholes resulting from recent heavy rains.
Along with regular patrols for pothole repairs, Council’s two jet patching crews have been out targeting some of the busier roads across the 1200-kilometre network of sealed roads in the Wagga Wagga Local Government Area.
The rain event at the end of June and start of July saw the city record more than 40mm over four days, and more falls over the weekend.
Council’s Manager Civil Operations Guy Oosterhoff says the rainfall can impact the integrity of sealed roads, particularly those carrying higher volumes of vehicles and heavy traffic.
“We’ve been quite blessed recently with very dry and hot weather over summer and autumn, but as we start getting the colder temperatures and the rain, we are going to see more potholes,” Mr Oosterhoff said.
“The water lying on the road surface can seep into the pavement through small cracks, which results in the soil or gravel base underneath softening.
“As vehicles travel over these soft spots, particularly when it’s a lot of traffic and heavy vehicles involved, it can cause the road surface to collapse, causing potholes to form.
“Our road crews endeavour to close them up as quickly as we can to try and stop the underlying issue from spreading further, and to hold the road together until we can do a proper pavement rehabilitation.”
Council recently adopted its Integrated Planning and Reporting (IP&R) suite of documents for 2026/27, which includes allocations for recurrent roads programs, such as the rehabilitation, crack sealing and bitumen reseal programs.
The Civil Operations team is in the process of developing the program of works which will be rolled out over this new financial year.
Mr Oosterhoff stressed the importance of the community identifying where attention is required by lodging a request via the Request It. Report It function on Council’s website or though Customer Service.
“We really appreciate it when the community tell us where the potholes and road damage are, and then we can arrange our crews to go to those areas,” Mr Oosterhoff said.
“Although we may not get to them the same day, it makes it easier for us to respond to them efficiently. Until we do, though, we reminded motorists to slow down and drive to the conditions.”
